Most software titles (Engineering Manager, Tech Lead, Solutions Architect) are bullshit.

Only think that matters is Junior, Mid, Senior and Lead Engineer.

Rest = garbage, the industry changes quicker that when one climbs up the bullshit career ladder to only find out he is obsolete.

And even that doesn't say much unless you expect a certain amount of years experience per level. Else you're mid in one company and senior in the other. I wouldn't take a junior anymore IT related for any language with overall experience. Starting from mid. It's not that you didn't learn from all other experiences

I disagree. One describes what you're doing, the other tells your seniority level. You can be a senior on a managerial position, but you can also be a senior while being an individual contributor.

Until this’ll be regulated by the government/law it still be a mess.
Some people think they are a Software Engineer after watching the full programming course on Youtube.
Some others after asking Chatgpt for piece of code thinks they are a Software Architect and with Senior roles…

@kamen ie. Any derivative of software engineer is doing nothing.

@jestdotty what’s even the point of speaking to colleagues?

@jestdotty
I have a strict no friendship at work policy – it’s cultural though, and British people are dishonest by nature – and I try to work alone as much as I can as it goes faster this way. From that point, only technical discussion is necessary with technical people and no discussion at all with the rest is needed

@jestdotty Not dishonest per se, more like hypocrit

@Tounai hipocrite is the worst way of dishonest

no friendship at work policy is stupid. Almost all my friends are from former employers. Imagine missing those great people because of some policy..

@retoor Yeah, so I let you imagine when hypocrisy is a culture.

Think of it as a way to keep work life and personal life separated. It can become messy otherwise.

@Tounai nah, never had them separated. I like work & talking about it. Talking about work with a colleague in a bar is fine for me

@retoor talking about work is not friendship to me 😂 And I prefer being home rather than speaking about work (pub during working hours is fine though)

@jestdotty what is that?

@jestdotty just found out what anglosphere means Cool that there's a word for that. Crazy that the definition includes a language. It could also have been "countries that share cultural, historical, and political ties" so in that case you would have english anglosphere and spanish anglosphere. I should design natural languages

At $work I’m a “software engineer.” Not a junior, not a senior, not a staff or principal or whatever. Just a software engineer.

Nearly everyone else there is a senior or principal dev. Not because they write elegant and performant code, architect well, understand new things quickly, etc. In fact, to my knowledge not a one of them with these titles are particularly skilled. What they all have in common, however, is a) having a high minority score, or b) being hired after HR decided to use titles.

In the former case, promotions are easy and readily available; in the latter, titles come by default. For those whom these two cases do not apply… promotions are neigh impossible.

So no, titles do not always mean much, either. Nor do years of experience, certifications, references, attributions, etc. I’ve seen many a useless yet highly-decorated developer.

Talk is cheap. Show me the code.