[usrusr]

The way tech worker ageism works is that many employers would never consider offering someone with a few years of experience (even if it's just life experience) little money. It's either a generous offer of the full package or a pass. And if previous employers skipped on the titles game ("my job description said 'programmer'"), the chance for anything other than "pass" is miniscule at employers who take titles as a given (and where people could not possibly imagine a world without).

That's what i meant: the titles don't have to mean anything in your company, but if you don't hand them out, even if only as a meaningless formality without any consequence, you're making life unnecessarily hard for employees when they need to look elsewhere. That's why i called it lead handcuffs: it makes leaving more difficult. And i don't get the impression that it's an intentional strategy ("yay, less fluctuation! Let's call them all junior janitors!"), that's why i was pointing out this aspect of "no junior or senior".