There are a number of commenters here getting hung up on what is or is not expected of a “senior” employee, which ignores the likely explanation that “senior” i

There are a number of commenters here getting hung up on what is or is not expected of a “senior” employee, which ignores the likely explanation that “senior” is something that costs a company exactly as much or as little money as they want it to. Think of it like “air miles” or “rewards points”. The hiring market has been extremely tight in recent years, and so it’s natural to see companies leverage job titles as part of competing for employees. (You might hear managers say “we’re just not getting a high enough quality of candidates for this role”, and an easy thing to do is to increase the job title. Increasing the salary and benefits is much harder since it requires justifying more budget.) True, the employee can now leverage the job title for more compensation, with their current and potential employers, but the onus is on the employee to negotiate, and in the meantime the employer gets the benefits. (Note that “benefits” does not mean that the employee suddenly becomes better than they are, it means that a known-quantity employee continues to do satisfactory work for the company for a time, at an acceptable price.)