I think it's worth bearing in mind that people who sign up for bootcamps generally expect to have a normal career trajectory. They do not expect to spend their careers as effectively junior developers. They genuinely believe they will become Technical Fellows, and expect that a bootcamp will get them started.

Few bootcamps seem to do a good job of teaching students what to expect in a career path or what they'll need to do to advance in it.

I think our industry is headed for a collective reckoning, though I would not begin to speculate on a timeline. We're going to have to square seniority as a measure of skill with seniority as a measure of time, and no matter how it happens a number of people are going to be unpleasantly surprised.

I'm reading job posts for "sr foo engineer" and requirements are typically "4 years of foo", and no other experience level mentioned.

Yes, we all know someone who's done something for 2 years and is amazing, a true genius/savant who redefines what's possible. They're the exceptions.

I've been in professional software around 25 years, and was recently talking with a colleague (roughly same years of experience). He's just started a new job, and is working with people coming out of a bootcamp, and is frustrated because they're both currently being put on the same tasks - some basic FE JS work - and the bootcampers are actually slightly more productive than him. It's because that's literally all they know - they happen to know the same versions of everything the company is using, because it's what the bootcamp used. They can't do anything else, but both parties are being judged by this one ability right now, and he's questioning his own value now. It's giving the junior folks sort of a weird view of what 'old people' are capable of (which, as an old person, bothers me some!)