[IvyMike]

Think of it this way:

1) Your resume is sitting somewhere that it will be mixed with web devs and finance managers. Or...

2) Your resume is given to people who are hiring senior system software engineers.

Try to make sure #2 happens, which you should be doing anyways. And once that happens, the objective doesn't really matter much anyways.

[mpercy]

Fair enough, but here's another example. Say someone is trying to move from IC to management. They might have no mgmt experience so they put "seeking engineering management position" as their objective. Is there a better way? The other traditional thing to do would be to explain this in your cover letter.

Edit: I get that you should be shopping it around and applying to various positions but it seems inevitable that a copy of your resume will get filed into countless HR databases. It seems rational to me to indicate what you're looking for on the resume.