If you can make do with generalist techies who can ramp up in a few weeks, you probably don’t need to be paying them $500k-$1M TCO. They’re just a new technician.

But that doesn’t mean that having people with actual research/depthful expertise aren’t essential and hard to find amongst the noise.

The person you responded to is talking about would-be technicians applying for researcher roles. That happens in tech booms and opens amazing doors for lucky smart people, but it’s also a huge PITA for hiring managers to deal with.