IME: There's also a weirdly un-technical career path at most places. I haven't seen many mid-sized to larger local companies that have technical career pathway

IME: There's also a weirdly un-technical career path at most places. I haven't seen many mid-sized to larger local companies that have technical career pathways. Most people have to switch to managerial pathways once they hit ~mid-career because compensation for technical roles stop growing. That means that there's just not much technical experience that accrues, and most people in leadership positions have either outdated or little technical expertise. Some outliers exist - Canva? Atlassian? - but the norm seem to be a managerial work structure, not a tech-heavy.