how do tools such as Xilinxs new Vitis or HLS effect the future of FPGA engineers? Should I stick around in the FPGA realm or transition to software?
Learn some software, because you need software to interact with the FPGA. If you learn some software, you could use HLS in your development. Don’t worry too much about being replaced by HLS/Vitis. Hand written RTL is still the best performance. HLS requires in depth knowledge of different pragmas for use in the C++... which guide the result of synthesis... so it still takes someone who is hardware aware...
If you can augment your FGPA knowledge with data science/ ML knowledge. You'll be a rockstar anywhere you go.