Experience alone doesn't necessarily mean they can solve the problem and ship/write good code. I've worked with plenty of "senior" engineers that have 20+ years experience yet have never dealt with any serious issues. These usually work at companies where a small team of "ninjas" handles those sorts of things, and the run of the mill Dilbert coder shows up and does his thing. This is not a knock on those people. They are important in their own way, truly. But I would not want them to be the responsible party for steering the ship in a new app.