I am sure most senior engineers would think twice if they felt they were getting the same shitty, non-important treatment internship applicants are getting.

I will agree that in reality senior folks are generally more valuable than interns are. Experience for one is something most interns usually don't have.

But let me clarify one thing: interns are not all undergraduates fresh out of high school. A lot of interns are in master or PhD program and some have a fair amount of technical experience before returning back to school. We keep hearing how awesome some interns are from time to time, so there are superstar interns. It's unfair to say interns are less important. In what sense is a senior person more important or useful than an intern?

Technically? Maybe. You can have a stubborn 15 years coder who believes in some obsolete way of coding and writing protocol and there is a great intern who can deliver the project on time and build a viral, interesting side project during internship. Who is more capable? Who is more useful in the long run? You can spend 10 years at a local firm writing the most horrible Java code and pass interviews at RedHat and becomes a senior engineer. That's possible. Now comes a 20 years old college junior with a pretty resume and he or she passes the same interview.

I suppose no company out there makes a big distinction between senior hire and junior hire unless the position is special or the applicant is an internal referral. For big companies like redhat, the fact above means most applicants, regardless of their years of experience, applications will sit in the queue for few weeks or few months.

Go to glassdoor and read how many 10+ years people complain about sitting in a job queue for weeks. So in general, senior people isn't all that special from a recruiter point of views.

Also, from a company's point of view, an intern could in fact work on a secret project (think Google glass?) and they will work with senior people with super high security clearance. So they are equally important. You can be short of one intern and delay delivery by two weeks.

The thought of "I have 10 years knowledge in this domain so I am more important" will fail because tomorrow another senior hire will have 20 years in your domain and you are now a rookie to him. Your idea will be crushed and thrown away even though they are useful and actually really useful and profitable. If seniority overruns a team, that's a red flag. It is a sign of a plague. It is a sign of destruction.

In some way we have to appreciate interns. They are there only for 12 weeks but most of them are self-motivated and they will get work done in their free time. If you think about interns, they are probably the most passionate people you will find around your office for 12 weeks or so. Your senior folks come and go. Interns leave because they have to leave. So interns could be seen a contractor hired for 12 weeks or so. They are full time during those twelves weeks, carrying same mission as you senior folks do. They are just as important as you. Most of them can deliver the product as a team with you, and you don't have to solve every problem. They deserve the same respect as you senior folks do too.