[geofft]

This isn't unusual/deceptive in the industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_president

> In business, "vice president" refers to hierarchical position that ranges from extremely senior positions directly reporting to C-level executives (in non-financial companies), to junior non-management positions with four to 10 years of experience (in financial companies).

...

> In brokerage firms, investment banks and other financial companies, "vice president" is a seniority rank rather than denoting an actual managerial position within the company. It is a relatively junior position, usually does not denote managerial responsibilities and companies have a large number of vice presidents, perhaps as an inexpensive way for a company to recognize employees, or perhaps because of delayering when an employee can't be moved higher in the organization but still deserves recognition. In most cases, the title merely implies that someone is in a medium-seniority individual contributor role.

I work in the same industry, and my boss is a vice president (and had been a vice president for years despite becoming a manager only last year); his boss is a vice president; his boss is a managing director; his boss is a managing director; her boss is the CTO; his bosses own the company. I'm at roughly a level 4 in Google terms, and at my next promotion I can apply for VP and at the one after that I must apply for VP, regardless of whether I stay on the IC track or move to the manager track. So that should get you an idea of what "VP" means.

All of this was new to me when joining, though, and it would be nice to have it more publicly known.