It applies to pretty much anything these days. To senior roles and leadership roles because risk aversion seems to be the most prominent driving factor behind

It applies to pretty much anything these days. To senior roles and leadership roles because risk aversion seems to be the most prominent driving factor behind any corporate decision today, and these roles tend to have more responsibility to up the anxiety some more. To junior roles because almost every market has so many juniors they are able to make insane demands, and a general shift in idea from "they will grow with us" to "give them the minimum and see if they will stick around". Coupled with loads of "do your dues" years where one learns almost nothing, but is frequently met with leaders who prefer someone with experience to work on the problem / new project instead. The latter is especially amusing since it leads to the lack of seniors capable of bridging that anxiety gap (read: seniors who are only seniors by YoE). Anyone who has looked a little into learning methods, gamification and such can also tell dripfeeding challenges is one of the worst ways to teach people, and how insanely quick people can learn when thrown in the deep, let alone feeding them challenges of increasing difficulty at a fast pace (with some measure of safety to cover failures).