[brianwawok]

Title doesn’t matter. Pay does.

Also titles are not the same across companies. SR dev at one place is a level 5 dev at another is a lead dev at a third.

If you are at the pay you want with a lower title, that is pure gold. It means an easy promotion, which is a pay bump.

Fighting for a higher title as an IC when happy with the pay seems like you are fighting against yourself. You want to be hired at the highest possible title so you have many years to go until a promotion?

[seti0Cha]

Depends. A higher job title helps you land higher level jobs down the line and is expected with a certain amount of experience. If I see a resume where someone spent significant time as a mid-level while having 10 years experience, I'd wonder whether that person was not capable of working at a higher level.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> Title doesn’t matter. Pay does.

For your current role. If you want to switch, it definitely does.

You're not job hopping to FB from Google at L3 and going up to L6.

You might be getting paid like a L5 now - but if you want to leave or get laid off or forced out or whatever - you'll probably end up with a huge career decline and pay decline than if you also had the proper title.