It does kind of read like the kind of company who advertises for "the best of the best." Then again, when was the last time you saw a job req that covered adequacy in a realistic fashion? "You should eat and breathe Big Data and stomp the kittens of database caching in your sleep." I could go to Craigslist (or HN YC job postings) or wherever for in-the-wild examples here, but I'm sure we're all remembering the same things.

The article isn't just about money, it's also about things like the engineer refusing to do work outside his desired specialty.