I'm 40 with 20 years of real and varied industry experience (big and small companies; crossing systems, desktop, and much web/distributed dev), rabidly curious,

I'm 40 with 20 years of real and varied industry experience (big and small companies; crossing systems, desktop, and much web/distributed dev), rabidly curious, and deeply study (and use on real, often side projects) bleeding edge this and that. What I think is my core value is the long-developed ability to build sound/robust architectures fast, with very good estimation and delivery prediction, and using latest tools, platforms, and technologies. I know this may sound self-promoting, egotistical perhaps but I believe it's true. Less experience brings a lot of risk in the form of opportunity cost -- without hard-won experience, you simply don't yet have the ability to predict delivery or make the kind of "don't-look-back" decisions and optimal prioritizations that comes with mastery. I can go to market and find a few companies that can pay my current salary. But the jobs I've been interested in (often medium-sized companies) seem to be trying to fill out a slate of 5 junior/mid-level roles, implicitly devaluing the kind of experience that I have. I don't blame them. How do you demonstrate that you can truly "make better prioritized decisions" or "build sound architectures quickly" -- I can do these things, but the proofs are all counterfactuals. I know people in the industry for more than 20 years who did not cultivate their skill set. So how does a company first differentiate between me* and the other 20-year veteran? On the job you'll experience the difference in talent between him and me, but how do you a priori tell? We need a way to show the houses we've built in our careers. How I can I show you that the 100,000 LOC code base(s) that I built or refactored at my last job(s) is stucturally sound with little leaks and supports agile development? As opposed to the other guy who left his spavined˜construction to a company in misery trying to maintain it? Then the second thing is how do get these companies to value the skill set? "Working" is the mantra of the day, but "working" code that's not "sound" doesn't just start bleeding you in a year or two but in weeks from now. In other words, 20 years is worth paying for. * Swap "me" for "some guy who _has_ mastered his craft to the level I'm describing". Yes, needs definition, but assume there is a definition.