The process was stupid. Now that I've read some employee reviews of the College Board written by Engineers, it all makes sense now. Apparently College Board doesn't have any positions higher than "Senior" level, despite the typical flow of Software Engineering hierarchy looks something like this: Junior, Regular, Senior, Master, Principal, Lead, and Distinguished. So because College Board doesn't have anything higher than Senior, they treat the Senior level position as if it's actually Principal, Lead or Distinguished somewhere else. My current role is "Senior" level at a Fortune 500 company, but the recruiter immediately cut me off when explaining my experience and said "We have nothing in our senior level for you. You don't qualify for our senior level." So the initial phone screening was as far as I went, since there clearly is no room for upward growth for Engineers at this company outside of jumping over into some type of management. This makes since, because the company is over 100+ years old. Maybe update your staffing and compensation models to be more "in line" with modern tech companies. You lost a great asset who potentially would have provided tangible value to your company, all because I don't "fit" your antiquated definition of "Senior Engineer".