It's easy to get bitter about these things. "Experience" seems to be code for: "we've spent fifteen years painting ourself into a corner and now we need a guy who will get us out of it in three months or less". You are however not allowed to give any feedback whatsoever about their processes, priorities, organization, promotion strategies, retention policies, etc.

Having experience usually means that you've acquired a holistic view of software development. Usually the hard way. But they want solutions, not advice or opinions.

I've met a few devs that makes a living like that. Get in, solve problems. Keep quiet. Get out. Wait for them to call back in a couple of years.

> You are however not allowed to give any feedback whatsoever about their processes, priorities, organization, promotion strategies, retention policies, etc.

Ironically, the only people who have social permission to do that are extremely expensive Big Name outside consultants. Who will then do one of two things: either speak to the staff, collate what they have to say, and launder it back to the boss; or produce a thinly veiled adaptation of whatever business book the CEO last read in an airport.

This is a reason why when life pushed me away from product development into consulting/agency work, I hated it at first and eventually I learnt to appreciate the positive side of it.

Usually those kind of companies won't hire old employees, while at the same time will gladly pay for consulting knowledge to solve their problems.

Also while product companies tend to hire folks that the very last thing they worked on checks all bullet points on the HR job ad, agencies will gladly throw people at a problem regardless of the skills list, as long as the team learns to swimm fast enough.