I believe the challenge you’re seeing has to do with the fact that those jobs are rare and even more rarely offered to outsiders. Principals that report higher in the org are usually people who have been at the company a long time and know as much about how the company likes to do things as they do the tech stack involved. You can probably easily get a job like that, but it would require a less glamorous role on entry and working your way into it by proving your value.

The hardest part I’ve found being over 40 is mustering the will to prove value. The older I get, the more time I have to spend rebuilding reputation whenever I enter a new company.

I think the best advice I can give is find a company you won’t mind being at in 5-8 years so you can really learn how things are done there and can affect change.