[gms]

'Founding <whatever>' is silly title inflation. Ten years ago 'Founding Engineer' was just 'Software Engineer'.

More generally, I don't recommend fiddling with basic titles early. You don't know if your company will be alive in two years so there are more important things for everyone to focus on.

Just give everyone a title of 'Software Engineer'. Anyone who rejects you for that is likely someone who shouldn't join anyway.

[nikanj]

Founding <whatever> only makes sense if you're giving them a founder-sized slice of equity.

[thomasmost]

Good advice, thank you.

[quietthrow]

Beg to differ. Whether you like it or not the world does not operate on idealistic standards. Most people when hiring for certain higher levels are looking for (among other things) a steady growth trajectory in candidates and unfortunately titles are the only way to show that on linked in and resumes. When somebody is a principle engineer prior and moves to software engineer title it’s hard to parse this dip without the person being able to provide context. As such people who are career minded ambitious will likely have a problem with this and pass.to box everybody under software engineer might be great for the company but demonstrates one sided thinking. Lot of candidates are not ok with that.