I think you have found the issue to be honest, I think most people are expecting to be "senior" in place of "not junior" as soon as they prove they are good programmers. The senior title has been quite diluted by that.
Seniority is about experience and not skill in my opinion, we see many talented developers who don't qualify as senior because they simply haven't experienced enough situations. I expect a senior to have some war stories and a breadth of notable situations that they can walk me through, to demonstrate their ability to predict common issues and pitfalls, and to show how their experience helps their troubleshooting and informs their choices.
If I had told 20 year old me this, 20 year old me would have balked. 20 year old me was an excellent programmer, but he didn't know shit about long term software development.
Seniority is about experience and not skill in my opinion, we see many talented developers who don't qualify as senior because they simply haven't experienced enough situations. I expect a senior to have some war stories and a breadth of notable situations that they can walk me through, to demonstrate their ability to predict common issues and pitfalls, and to show how their experience helps their troubleshooting and informs their choices.
If I had told 20 year old me this, 20 year old me would have balked. 20 year old me was an excellent programmer, but he didn't know shit about long term software development.