[michaelochurch]

There's job fraud and social status inflation.

Job fraud is claiming you can do something that you're objectively unqualified to do, usually by counterfeiting formal certifications. For example, if you claim to be a doctor but never went to medical school, you're guilty of job fraud and should go to jail.

Social status inflation is something that everyone does, and that everything has been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. It's ethically OK. Don't get caught, because high-status people tend to be protectionist over their pedigree, but there's nothing morally wrong with it. Generally it's best not to put inflations in written form, for practical reasons. The answer to "Should I lie on my CV?" is almost always "no". Write a truthful CV and keep the inflations in verbal form as much as you can.

In truth, moving one's title to the management track is a demotion in a way, because it's so much harder to make "X-equivalent engineer" than X on the management track. Take Google. It's ridiculously easy to make the Director level on the management track. The main requirement is a pulse. It's extremely hard to make Principal or Distinguished Engineer.

[andyidsinga]

okaaaay. sorry to me, staff software engineer != director.