Greybeards need work too.
It’s annoying that.. once you’ve reached ‘Principal Engineer’ level.. there is no going back.
Hiring managers simply won’t hire you for senior or ‘mid’ level roles, thinking you are over-qualified!
Even though you may well apply to those, and they may well be the best fit for you, because you realise that the tech world is so specialised, that you may be a ‘mid’ in some areas, and a ‘principal’ in others.
Even though hiring managers may WELL be getting a ‘bargain’ - just as any other profession would recognise - imagine hiring a Consultant Medical Doctor for a Junior Doctors wage! What medical hiring manager WOULDN’T jump at that?
Hiring managers have a certain ‘person’ in mind.. for mid.. they look at late 20-somethings at maximum.. they want to hire someone with ‘youthful energy’ who wants to be given the chance to ‘prove themselves’ and work especially hard.
They will tell you you’re ’too expensive’ - this is BS, because if you don’t pitch yourself competitively and within the salary range of the ‘mid’ engineer you’re applying for, you won’t get the job!
They will tell you you will ‘get bored’ - IMAGINE the arrogance of a hiring manager thinking that THEY know what will make you bored better than someone who has 20+ years experience in the industry! Just complete BS.
They will tell you they are concerned that ‘you haven’t kept your skills up to date’ - well, WHY are they concerned about this, when you will be assessed on the skills needed for the job as part of the technical interview process?? It is simply NOT true that people become ‘more set in their ways’ as they age - after 60 maybe, but not during their working life! Many older people keep a ’learning mindset’ and have greater neuroplasticity and desire to learn than younger engineers! So this is a bias, a prejudice and the scientific evidence simply does not support it.
They might think that ‘Oh this guy must not be very ambitious or very good, if he has got to this experience level and wants to settle for the salary of a ‘mid’ job’ OR ‘Oh this guy must have not been able to hack it at Principal level and wants to step down.. he probably isn’t very good’. This is just complete BS and prejudice - NOT EVERYONE is driven solely by money - often older engineers are MUCH more financially stable and don’t have to chase a high paycheque - maybe they are actually applying for your advertised job role because they are passionate about staying in tech and think that job is going to be genuinely interesting - entirely separate from monetary concerns! This is actually far more likely. Perhaps the engineer even wants to REDUCE their stress level by stepping down from Principal, because they know that they will simply be able to do the job with their eyes closed! And as a hiring manager, WHY would you not want to hire someone who can do this??
They are really concerned that they might hire someone that will ‘outshine the master’ and challenge THEM legitimately on things they do not know! But that is a massive presumption - not everyone is interested in doing that, some people just want a normal job, to get their head down and stay in their lane!
They are really concerned about the power dynamics of managing someone older than them, especially because they typically have had zero management training, and honestly? they are probably not a ’natural’ manager in the first place, having been promoted usually from a purely technical role. This objection is simply because they are poor managers and do not understand the value of hiring people with more experience than them.
They are really concerned that you will not ‘fit in’ to the team; well, that is only because the team is about the most un-diverse work environment you will ever see in any industry! Age diversity is a thing, and should be a measured metric! The more diverse the team is, the more complimentary strengths a team has - but because they have had no management training they do not understand this!
But where does that leave you, with more transferable knowledge, experience and a better idea than both hiring manager and mid engineer where you might best fit into an organisation?
NOWHERE.
How is this fair? It completely isn’t!
How does this make any sense? It completely doesn’t!
But we still all have to live with it.
The only alternative is to ‘doctor’ your CV to hide some of your experience and pretend you are less senior than you actually are!
The above biases, and the fact that externally hired ‘Principal Engineer’ positions are about 1% of the entire tech engineering job market, means a lot of people will ‘work their way upwards’ until they become unemployable!