[AnimalMuppet]

The higher you go, the more expensive you get. And the fewer places see the value you bring compared to a cheaper "senior sw dev" with 5 years of experience.

If you want to be paid more than someone with 5 years, you have to generate more value than they do, and you have to persuade the hiring manager that you can generate more value. The fraction of places that can see that is smaller than the fraction that can see the value of a senior over a junior. (On the other hand, for those places, the competition for the jobs is also less severe - there aren't tons of people with 20 years of experience on the street at any given time.)

So it takes longer than it did when you had 5 years of experience. But keep looking. There are places that will see the value in what you provide.

The job category you're looking for is "principal software engineer" or "staff software engineer".

[yesdocs]

The mere statement that a 5 year ‘Senior’ software engineer has more perceived value than a ‘Senior’ software engineer with 20 years of experience is just crazy. Let’s replace ‘software engineer’ with ‘electrician’ and then tell me this is sane.

[AnimalMuppet]

That wasn't my statement. Let me try again.

A 5 year software engineer may have more perceived value per cost than a 20 year software engineer. Sure, if they have the same salary, you hire the 20 year engineer, but they don't. The 20 year engineer expects more pay, and (rightly) won't work for 5-years-of-experience wages. So you have to find an employer that perceives the additional value of the additional 15 years of experience.

[yesdocs]

Have you seen the salary requirements for these jobs? People are being paid way more than they were being paid 10 years ago. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is turning down jobs because of insufficient wages. The perceived ‘value’ that an employer sees is the ability of being able to exploit a younger engineer with ridiculous timelines and all night ‘coding sessions’ because they don’t have a family waiting for them when they get home.

[AnimalMuppet]

Then I guess I'm nobody. I was turning down jobs that wanted to pay me like I had 5 years of experience, just a year ago.