> The people getting pushed out are the intermediates and seniors who aren't high performers.

It's almost impossossible to screen for "high performers" though. When interviewing, you just don't know who you are getting, short of like, they can solve your leetcode questions well, and they had good answers to pretty high-level "work experience" questions.

So I don't think this can be true on the hiring side. Maybe on choosing who they let go when cutting down the workforce, they can look at general performance reviews and such, but I doubt it plays a role in hiring.