| Titles beget Titles at some places. Most recent job boss asked what I wanted written in on my contract, I was tempted to have "<code-monkey>" but I had that on my business cards at the previous place so I just went for "Senior Software Engineer". I'm the only software engineer so I am simultaneously the most senior and most junior software engineer ;). Thing is if I go for a new job in the future I can legitimately put "Senior Software Engineer" on my CV (and Systems Administrator and Systems Architect (previous jobs)). The reality is that if you work for a small tech company as the sole/part of small team developer you'll effectively do multiple roles (sometimes less than brilliantly) that would earn you most of the way towards those titles in large orgs. I've worked with big companies where their 'senior' programmers where less capable than me (and I'm by no means fantastic, just experienced, diligent and patient), outsourced IT firms with "years of linux experience" where the solution to permissions issues was chmod 777 everything etc etc. Some of it I wouldn't believe if I hadn't actually seen it (I'm actually preparing a tech talk on the subject since all the talks I go to locally are "Look at this fabulous tech/architecture" and never "Putting out the dumpster fire"). To paraphrase Louis CK "Think the most average developer you know, half of them are worse than that". Also soft-skills, they matter, I know it's tempting to think that technology/software is a meritocracy and parts of it might be, hiring/promotions near universally aren't. |