If your broken sink is connected to a broken pipe under the street in front of your house on your property, and you find that you need to hire a Master Plumber with a team of juniors to fix it, you may find that the same price/years of experience equation exists.
The hierarchy of the trade union is what sustains this service model in the marketplace.
"hire a Master Plumber with a team of juniors to fix it"
In that situation I would consider the "Master Plumber" akin to a lead developer or project manager. Which goes back to my main point - in software development you eventually need to either move to a management/leadership role or specialise in domain specific fields like security, computer graphics, systems architecture etc.
The hierarchy of the trade union is what sustains this service model in the marketplace.