They could have had those roles already. Once you're in those advanced IC type of roles, there aren't really a lot of places that you can go. A lot of the tim

They could have had those roles already. Once you're in those advanced IC type of roles, there aren't really a lot of places that you can go. A lot of the time that role depends on your domain experience within the company -- Usually to "move up", you have to go down a role to a bigger/more-challenging company. Thus at BigCo, hiring senior devs of advanced age should make sense to do. s/a staff engineer/architect.