I wish to point out that the qualification for being a non-junior engineer is to be able to work independently, for being a senior engineer is to be able to lead small projects, for being a staff engineer is to be able to lead large, cross team projects, and for being a principal engineer is to get over your instinct to, when confronted with a difficult problem, say the answer is to throw it out and start over. There aren't many principal engineers giving hot takes on government IT infrastructure.