There’s definitely a shortage of skilled professionals - we have a hard time hiring without lowering the bar as well, and I am at a FAANG. We don’t necessarily care if someone has experience in most of our stack - myself, I hardly had any experience in almost any of it when I joined, but I had the combination of soft & technical skills desired.

Since I joined, I have said no to all but 2 candidates I phone screened, and one of those I rejected in the onsite. We didn’t even ask a difficult question for people to implement, but people demonstrated their lack of thoughtfulness in how they approached problems.

I don’t care how old people are - one of my teammates has been at my workplace for a little under 30 years and is valued for his well-honed perspective, tireless QAing, and reliable execution. Regardless of age, I expect people to intelligently talk about tradeoffs, and keep an eye on the problem that is being solved & its effects on the end user.

The interesting thing about bigger companies is compensation stops matching up with the value created. Jumping up $100k-150k in total compensation usually correlates with an exponential increase in productivity increase from the person’s presence, and usually that increase is not from code.