Actually there's another job before that, I just don't list my full employment history. Before that was VP of Engineering. That's just my final title, however. I started that as a normal engineer. And then as a senior engineer before CTO.

Small companies, so not the same as being VPE or CTO at Amazon. You see those as title downgrades, but I don't. I have a lot of talent, so people want to promote me and put me in charge. I don't want to be a manager/leader currently, I want to be a strong IC.

Why not?

I would still talk to them, it they actually were a CTO for a period and then got hired as Principal Engineer, they might be extremely talented.

I find these meaningless reasons bullshit, just tell me that you spinned the roulette and 5 red came out and I needed a 7 black to be chosen to be talked to. At least I don't start self doubting myself just because someone didn't like my formatting or the choices I made after university.