I’ve seen people call themselves “senior” after 3 years on the job, other become CTOs in the same time, and others still have a senior title after 20(!) years in the industry yet have a fuckton of technical experience.

I’ve heard that they are all just titles and opinions from “if you don’t have the technical skill you can’t call yourself a senior”, to “senior and staff are just a feeling, principal is the actual senior” and “staff? above senior? we call that manager”.

What’s your story? Is there a ladder? Do you feel like you belong on it? Where are you on it? Does it make sense? Did you see major bumps in salary? Did titles count at all?

  • @PencilnoobEnglish
    29•1 year ago

    You definitely described it perfectly: total chaos.

    Titles are just “how valuable you are to that team”.

    Every team has different needs, so a senior engineer in one team might be a junior on another team that has a totally different set of needs. There is also no standardized titles, so it mostly is just “whatever they want to call it”.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      There is also no standardized titles, so it mostly is just “whatever they want to call it”.

      This fits my experience. Wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or living in a bubble. Had the misfortune of working with a very, let’s say confident, junior who convinced the recruiter they were senior. It did teach me to be a bit more confident in selling myself.