I’m had all three titles at various points in my career but the reality is that my responsibilities and operational altitude varied widely from company to company. I just completed a job search after being laid off and one of the challenges of finding a job in leadership is deciphering what each company actually wants from their managers or directors or VPs.

Some roles are “hands on”. For others that’s a red flag. For some it’s all about managing people and emotional intelligence. For others it’s all about technical acumen and technical direction. Sometimes what they are really looking for is exactly what the last person in the role did. In other cases, they want the opposite of the last person to hold the role.

The only thing you can really depend on when it comes to leadership titles in software, in my experience, is that one’s title explains which meetings one is expected to attend.