I think the true problem here lies in reconciling titles with responsibilities. In software engineering most of our titles are very generic and can span different disciplines entirely. A senior dev working on database and a senior dev working on front-end probably shouldn't be compensated the exact same because their disciplines are completely different so conversely the value they bring to the company can vary wildly, but they're still senior devs by title. But if the best mechanism by which we can 'reward' these people is by adjusting their title this comes with an implied difference of responsibilities. Instead I think we need to do away with the HR non-sense of correlating titles with value. If an engineer does something of value that should be rewarded, give them a raise or bonus, not a title change.