I quit applying to youngster-roles (I can now smell them with quite an accuracy) and focused on SRE/Devops roles. They come with a tolerance for grey hair (or at least they claim to) albeit they are so broad and deep at the same time that is insane.

That's a problem then. I already mentioned those places are a bit like the army. They usually don't consider experienced people for junior positions. Academia is the same. What I've seen happening sometime is interviewing someone experienced to a senior position and then giving them an offer to a less senior position since they did well on the interview but not well enough (the thing that changes is the title they are given (less senior level), which affects responsibilities and salary).