That's a question for their hiring team, not me. But normally companies apply a culture fit interview. Also it's not inertially bad. Non-compete agreements allow employees to become field expert in niche areas and to jump between companies standing up their infrastructure. Getting better and learning from their mistake each time. Hiring those individuals is a costly but effective way to scale up quickly.

I don't think we should shame anyone for doing that if they're delivering value doing that.

That rule of thumb tends to break down at high salaries. Most of those costs don't scale with salary (like desk space, insurance costs, 401k match which is usually capped, etc).

Is "a highly specialized skill set" consistent with "2.5k employees" ?