[samplatt]

I'll disagree. The last 20 years I've been a DBA/DA/dev at a slew of medium/large/ultragiant mining/construction/engineering companies. In almost every single one, there's a young gun quietly operating somewhere there, the equivalent of a 10x developer, a "Senior Engineer" in their mid-20's.

Sure, they're the exception, but with enough numbers you'll always find exceptions.

[swatcoder]

I appreciate you sharing this! But to be fair, those exceptions are presumably granted with some honor for proven work.

Titles were never normalized in the software industry because we've resisted licensure -- so organizations freely make up their own, rotate them, inflate them and workers don't complain so long as it sounds no less cool/marketable than their last one.