[hguant]

>Senior devs are nowhere to be found through regular applicant pipelines. They seem to be leaving as a result of reaching out to friends/former colleagues.

Anecdotal, and I wouldn't call myself senior dev (though, with 10 years in industry, I'm not a junior any more), but apart from my actual first job, I've never "applied" anywhere that I haven't already been offered a position, and I know that's true for everyone I've hired/recruited. The need for engineers/developers with hands on skillsets who have actually delivered something is ridiculous, and I'm not even in the Bay area. Hell, the last time I had a technical interview it was in a pool at DEFCON, and that was only so the company could tell their board that they'd had a "rigorous and competitive interview process" (their founders words).

It's to the point where I'm a little cautious about how I talk about work outside of it, because if someone thinks you're unhappy, they'll set up a lunch in a heartbeat.