I don't think that a covid-related hiring spree should have affected a company like Confluent. Yeah there were probably many product companies that got more money due to Covid that wanted a managed Kafka solution, but Covid also took down other kind of companies who might have been Confluent's customers.

I think it has more to do with cheap money not being cheap anymore.

Overhiring doesn't affect the common people (except positively) - overfiring of course affects those fired.