The hard part is getting an offer from a top company in the first place. It’s a lot of luck and the interview process is designed more to avoid bad engineers than it is to find good ones.

Getting to senior shouldn’t be too difficult for any competent engineer. Getting to staff requires significantly more effort.

Also until recently these companies never did lay offs. You had to be PIP’d before being let go.

The real trap is joining a startup. Unless you’re very early it’s a huge roll of the dice.