One person's "ladder pulling" is another person's "raising the bar".

Over time, companies should continue to raise the bar for both candidates and existing employees. As your company grows, you can and should become better at attracting more talented and ambitious employees. You tend to have more resources to compensate new hires better, allowing for more selective hiring practices. Growth means you've learned how to more effectively identify the best candidates.

Companies aren't being vindictive or selfish. If they can't hire enough people, they'll dwindle and die. The bar should be set just low enough to keep enough talent coming in the door, but no lower.

Companies aren't obligated to hire talent at the same levels they did in the past. It's not ladder pulling, it's just business.

Yea, if I had also been working on this particular code for the past two years I'd be able to breeze through these problems too.