What's to say there isn't just as many, equally capable people looking for a job there? They'll be fine. Most people are going no where and those that leave will be replaced immediately.
Many people will peace out if their job makes them feel stressed and insecure. They have options and remote work makes it even easier to both interview (on Twitter's time) and switch to a new job (the world is your oyster and job changing friction is minimal).
> and those that leave will be replaced immediately.
Twitter is gonna have a hard time differentiating itself as a job now. Why work for Elon who treats people like this? Maybe that one somewhat niche political/ideological faction in software will be more likely. Lifestyle devs (most of them)? Nah - there's 10 chiller options out there.
I don't think there's enough true believers out there to sustain even normal dev turnover of 1-3y. Maybe Elon will have to pay even more money on salaries to stand a chance. Or he'll give up since he seems a little Dunning-Kruger on this venture as SV CEO.
Plus, interviewing takes engineering time, since you need existing engineers to conduct those interviews. Engineers who are being asked to "show their work" won't want to take time away to interview their replacements.
But that's just your anecdote and has no actual affect on the time necessary to hire new software developers.
And the time it takes to hire has always been there; it isn't anything novel and certainly isn't stopping anybody from applying/hiring.
A "big valley tech" company? No. A big company? Yes. But you didn't explain why that mattered.