The title only so matters to the extent the company is a known entity.

The "staff engineer" at some random series B startup 4 years into their career nearly always gets hired in at mid level somewhere like Meta.

They may, but the amount of information they're getting is low.

As a hiring manager I'll look at progression of titles *within a company*. This shows a track record of upward mobility. But if they go from "senior" in one company to "principal" in another, I find it meaningless.