I was a lead (or the equivalent since titles change) after 5 years way back in the day and I really shouldn't have been.
The thing is the job titles are pretty much meaningless as I've never worked two places that had similar criteria for what they considered junior, regular, senior, lead and in some places seniors are leads (if you only have 1 senior on a team of 8 they are a lead, if you have 6 seniors on a team of 8 and no lead then are they really senior and to who).
Other places promote on time served, so you are junior 2 years, regular dev for 2-3 years, senior after that.
It's one of the reasons when hiring I completely ignore their previous titles and look at what they actually did.
I've seen juniors who where at least equivalent to seniors in other places and "Seniors" who I wouldn't have hired as a junior.
My favourite title in my entire career (and it was my actual title) was "Code Monkey"[1], it got entered as a joke in the HR system and everything after that sort of followed on even my business cards (remember those?) said it (since company ordered them and did a mail merge from the HR system).
> My favourite title in my entire career (and it was my actual title) was "Code Monkey"[1], it got entered as a joke in the HR system and everything after that sort of followed on even my business cards (remember those?) said it (since company ordered them and did a mail merge from the HR system).
One company I worked at let people use whatever title they wanted, as long as it was in good taste, and it didn't imply a level of authority you didn't have. I never actually took advantage of that, but I kind of wish I had, just for the sake of having some hilarious business cards.
I'm gonna guess the career-savvy people just went with no-joke "senior software engineer" or "principal software engineer", because the easiest way to be hired as a senior/principal and get the associated salary bump is to already have that job title on CV from your previous job.
Sorta kinda. Most people just went with some variation on "software engineer," but I don't think anybody really inflated their title beyond what the norm would have been for their experience level.
Now that I've read what @noir_lord wrote about how it's helped a bit career-wise, I may go back and revise my title to "Code Slinger" or something. After all, given the policy, it's not like they can really call me on it. ;)
Partners would get a chuckle out of it, then remember me when anything dev related came up which let me make really useful contacts I otherwise wouldn't have made.
What is life for if not to be whimsical occasionally.
> Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. (Hubbard)
When I was working for the Danish government on several standardization projects (basically writing schemas and attending meetings with interested parties to work out syntax) me and a couple other guys chose the title 'XML Architect' as sort of nose-thumbing at the IT architecture division (unfortunately there are stories and reasons there that should probably be kept unshared)
I was a lead (or the equivalent since titles change) after 5 years way back in the day and I really shouldn't have been.
The thing is the job titles are pretty much meaningless as I've never worked two places that had similar criteria for what they considered junior, regular, senior, lead and in some places seniors are leads (if you only have 1 senior on a team of 8 they are a lead, if you have 6 seniors on a team of 8 and no lead then are they really senior and to who).
Other places promote on time served, so you are junior 2 years, regular dev for 2-3 years, senior after that.
It's one of the reasons when hiring I completely ignore their previous titles and look at what they actually did.
I've seen juniors who where at least equivalent to seniors in other places and "Seniors" who I wouldn't have hired as a junior.
My favourite title in my entire career (and it was my actual title) was "Code Monkey"[1], it got entered as a joke in the HR system and everything after that sort of followed on even my business cards (remember those?) said it (since company ordered them and did a mail merge from the HR system).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA