I even applied at one point and heard nothing back. Looks like nobody else has ever heard anything back either.
Bizarre.
We started receiving 20x more applicants than usual about this time last year when other tech companies were increasingly doing hiring freezes and layoffs. We're hiring consistently every month (including 5 new hires in the last month), especially from applicants from hacker news. Unfortunately we're not able to hire all the talented people that reach out. We have budget to grow faster, but internally, we have to be careful to not hire too quickly so that it's not chaotic for new people on the team with too little support from long-standing team members. We're trying our best to manage the higher volume of applicants, but clearly we let you down on communication so please accept my apology.
The reason I don't vary the job descriptions is because I would rather start with an excellent candidate and customize the position to match them than to start with an excellent job description and look for someone to match it. The person is the important part, not the job description.
The reason for the junior position is because some of the most talented people are overly humble and don't think they are qualified to apply, but are more willing when they see a junior position is available.