It's possible for the hiring manager to also be the bar-raiser, especially at senior levels like SDE3 and above. I have personally seen this happen. Having said

It's possible for the hiring manager to also be the bar-raiser, especially at senior levels like SDE3 and above. I have personally seen this happen. Having said that, I doubt that specific people are hired to be fired. I would consider it more likely that if a manager needs X people, he would try to keep the team strength at X + delta, so someone can be fired when required. Edit: formatting