Ask HN: What do you think about title inflation? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you think about title inflation?

4 pointsbrunooliv6 comments

I was wondering, I'm currently seeing a lot of posts here on HN as well as job offers for senior positions requiring 5+ years of experience.

I think that if you have 5 years of professional experience, you can't really call yourself a senior developer, unless you're at a high growth start-up or a FAANG maybe. But for the "other 99%", do you feel like title inflation in the industry is a real thing?

I'm curious to hear what you think about this. On one hand, I think it's bad to leave money on the table, but otoh, I also think these baselines are really messed up these days.... Any thoughts on why?

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> I think that if you have 5 years of professional experience, you can't really call yourself a senior developer

Thinking about what you can call yourself is kind of backwards - you don't call yourself anything, the company that hires you has some title and if you pass through their interview process, you get the job and that's the title that you have. If you get a senior job without any experience, then you're still a senior engineer.

The "I consider myself" or "people consider me" game is a waste of time, I don't get what difference it makes to tell yourself that you're at some arbitrary level that you set for yourself.

And since job titles vary so much, you just learn not to treat them as some definitive signal.

> I think that if you have 5 years of professional experience, you can't really call yourself a senior developer

Can we start off by defining what a senior developer is? To me it means somebody who is capable of independent problem solving without handholding. If that's the definition used, then somebody can be a senior developer 6 months into their career, or still not be a senior developer 20 years into their career.

For me, that's just a developer. A junior is someone who needs handholding, a regular developer can do their own work, while a senior has impact that goes beyond their own work (can coach juniors, make bigger decisions which affect team etc.).

1) I haven't looked for a job in a while. Do CURRENT_YEAR job ads distinguish between junior developer, developer, and senior developer? I mostly remember seeing ads for junior developer and senior developer jobs in the past and jobs that just listed "developer" were not that common if I remember right.

2) I think your description of senior mostly applies to some sort of lead developer or director of technology or some other fancy title. I think a senior developer can help juniors and make team decisions, but those who specialize in what you mention have some kind of lead or management title. To me, the key trait of a senior developer is that they can work out most problems on their own.

> I think that if you have 5 years of professional experience, you can't really call yourself a senior developer

If I can do the job of a senior developer, what does it matter how many years experience?

It makes hiring difficult

On the worker side it could lead to imposter syndrome which causes mental health issues

It’s pervasive so roll with it and manage yours and others’ expectations

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