I work in a place where I'm in the low end of the age spectrum at 30. The company is in the Financial industry and was founded in the 70s. It has a long history

I work in a place where I'm in the low end of the age spectrum at 30. The company is in the Financial industry and was founded in the 70s. It has a long history of using technology so many engineers started 10-20+ years ago. The company offers great benefits and salary are above average which is what I think many of the engineers here optimized for when coming to work here. That's also what I felt led a lot of the engineers I worked with in my previous job for one of the big tech companies to leave after 5 years or so. Most of them ended up taking jobs with companies which seemed to offer better work life balance and benefits. A lot of them also ended up in management. Some because it was the only path available for advancement. Many orgs just don't have (or make) space for distinguished engineers and the career path for SE ends at the senior level to which most can attend in less then 5-10 years. After that there is nowhere to go for them but management. Another issue is the demand for distinguished engineers is lower since you need less of them then junior and senior devs so it's a limited pool of jobs.