There is a huge pool of exceptional junior engineers

This has been driving me crazy, at my mid sized company, higher management insists pretty hard in only hiring senior/staff. But to be honest we are far from solving novel, challenging technical problems. Inevitably we hire (expensive) super senior people who end up having responsibilities that do not match their level in tech and also in product. The good ones that want a challenge leave after ~1y. Junior or mid level would be a better fit in many cases. When I look at the job descriptions I find them ridiculously inflated in terms of expectations compared to what actually happens in the company. In the past when we hired junior, mid level engineers they ramped up pretty well, their salaries went up and they are still with us.

> When I look at the job descriptions I find them ridiculously inflated in terms of expectations compared to what actually happens in the company.

At every company at work to, each time there was openings for the team I worked in, I read the job descriptions and I was like: "I would never apply for this position, I'm not qualified".

So I asked HR to lower the expectations, otherwise we would never find candidates. They told me that it was to avoid inexperienced people to apply. And then 99% of the candidates they pushed and I interviewed lied on their XP.

Good stuff!