So they want to hire a mid-level engineer with mid-level experience for mid-to-low-level salary for the area, while insisting on calling them a junior? A little weird but whatever.

I find it hard to find someone who can get through a technical degree program who isn’t about as intelligent as everyone else who got through that program. I find that most people who I have worked with, especially junior people, lack the motivation. There is only one person who simply couldn’t do it and she constantly needed help with everything and didn’t ever seem to learn no matter how much you tried to teach her. Everyone else just seemed like they weren’t actually that interested or maybe they were but had some personal issue standing between them and their motivation.

They say they want someone who has long distance potential. But I doubt that will include being actually super intelligent as opposed to meshing with their culture well.

Sounds like a miserable company. I wholly believe that the culture (or at least some small administrative group) is run by those making up arbitrary gatekeeping at best and looking to exploit inexperience at worst. Future prediction is certainly not their strong point. I didnt know much at 5yrs, given I had been at 2 companies with specific roles. This idea of some unicorn jr is a coke fueled fever dream, which is being touted as a virtue.