[trefn]

It may just look different now.

At my company (Mixpanel), the modern equivalent is our support team, which is filled with smart, hungry people who want to get their foot in the door in tech.

Now, we have former support folks all over the company (sales, sales engineering, services, software engineering, product - just to name the departments I can think of offhand), who are often our top performers as ICs or who have grown into leadership roles. Some have left to start their own companies.

It's actually been one of our most effective hiring channels!

[ts4z]

At your company, the modern equivalent is the janitor, who cleans your office -- but doesn't work directly for Mixpanel.

[rhizome]

This is something I've been wanting to ask at interviews, "how many people who work here were hired with a different title?" I'm pretty sure that promoting from within is an extremely strong indicator of resilience.