I mean I might be a hardware guy myself depending on your definition. I've never dealt with rocket engineers.. Are they "hardware guys" according to you? If so it seems you are using that term incredibly broadly.
But SpaceX went out of their way to define themselves against the old school defence-focussed companies.
So some rocket engineers might very well have made a positive choice to "work at SpaceX to get humans to Mars" rather than to "work at Lockheed to build missiles".
Anyone in that group is likely feeling rather disillusioned right now, which will inevitably lead into demotivation.