Engineers should act however they like. Companies, on the other hand, should be limited to using the open market to fill each post individually. They should be able to approach people (headhunting them) but only to bring people in to an application process that is open and equal to everyone else.

Don't forget that Uber have screwed every robotics researcher who doesn't work at Carnegie Mellon with this. These are probably some of the best paid, best funded, most exciting robotics engineering jobs going, and Uber handed the posts to their preferred group rather than using the free market. That's not fair or reasonable.