My last org just wanted one senior software engineer. Just one. They couldn't find one as the salary sucked, despite interviewing about a dozen over 6 months.
> despite interviewing about a dozen over 6 months
Did they really want one? I'd wager that if they took those six months of interviews, job ads and recruiter time and instead took that money, added it to the salary they are planning on offering (say divided by the average tenure in that role at your company) and threw up a post on the monthly "Who is hiring" thread here they could've found someone.
A common tactic is to say "Oh, we are looking for the right person we just can't find them!" when the rest of the team picks up the workload of the exited employee and to keep that up as long as possible. It happened to me at my first dishwashing job at 13 years old and I've seen it a few dozen times since.
"The explosive growth of the tech sector keeps average age down and depresses average wages. Compared to industries which existed in materially the same form in 1970, we have a stupidly compressed experience spectrum: 5+ years rounds to "senior." This is not a joke." [1]
So companies routinely comb for a "senior" person but the salary is always a mismatch. I have 25+ years under my belt but the companies that approach me expect a 5-year compensation arc and can't understand what the problem is.
Complicated question, as the company was structured so that each layer of management was its own "they" with its own budget. So wasted recruiter time was an externality not on their budgets. Management above line wasn't wasting any time so they did not care. Project accountability rested with the venture leads, not the development teams so there was little urgency to solve those problems either.
There's a good chance these positions never existed.
Company needed to "prove" that no American Engineers are available to fill the position to then justify sponsoring a visa. Then they'll go to the elected officials and whine that there's a "shortage" of engineers to try to get higher immigration quotas for H1Bs.
So they put a junior’s salary and senior experience requirements, then proceed to hire someone with “5 years of experience” at a famous foreign consulting firm (real or not). The experience is then used to justify why new grads have to be paid lower (he’s a senior, we can’t pay new grads the same as a senior) and to qualify for the visa.
Did they really want one? I'd wager that if they took those six months of interviews, job ads and recruiter time and instead took that money, added it to the salary they are planning on offering (say divided by the average tenure in that role at your company) and threw up a post on the monthly "Who is hiring" thread here they could've found someone.
A common tactic is to say "Oh, we are looking for the right person we just can't find them!" when the rest of the team picks up the workload of the exited employee and to keep that up as long as possible. It happened to me at my first dishwashing job at 13 years old and I've seen it a few dozen times since.