I’ve seen people call themselves “senior” after 3 years on the job, other become CTOs in the same time, and others still have a senior title after 20(!) years in the industry yet have a fuckton of technical experience.
I’ve heard that they are all just titles and opinions from “if you don’t have the technical skill you can’t call yourself a senior”, to “senior and staff are just a feeling, principal is the actual senior” and “staff? above senior? we call that manager”.
What’s your story? Is there a ladder? Do you feel like you belong on it? Where are you on it? Does it make sense? Did you see major bumps in salary? Did titles count at all?
The meaning of titles varies wildly from company to company. Most companies tend to define climbing the tech ladder as moving to a management position, which is something i abhorr. For be it’s better pay, more autonomy, less bullshit from management. Not less coding. But alas, they’re threatening disciplinary action if people don’t start going to the office at least twice per week starting next month, from the current twice per month.