I'm thankful that, at my $WORK, we're all software engineers by title, from the lowly interns to the CTO. Still, everybody knows who's who and whom to talk to, depending on the gravity of the issue.
All engineers are equal, however some engineers are more equal than others?
CTOs work is totally different from SE, so why s/he is SE?
Lets make your janitor can be SE too
In academic world, I hear, folks simply add the name of their professors due to their reputation. Of course, professors are putting their reputation at stake by giving a chance to the right students.
It's not exactly conducive to knowing that if you're a new starter though, is it. I imagine it takes quite a while to get to know, especially outside of your immediate remit.
You know if they are your boss, not how big of a boss they are. That's way more important unless your organization is a chaotic mess where managers feel like they can order around people from a different team. And then you got bigger problems.
Like if the title is Tech Lead, Staff, Principal or whatever there's an (often) unstated focus area. You're saying if you also state that, that's helpful. Yes it is! But if you only state that – Software Engineer, Mobile UX – it's helpful but you're back to having no idea of relative experience or decision-making power.
(If the org is truly flat and the intention is no inequality in 'decision-making power' etc. then fine, I suppose, but that's kind of a different conversation, pretty unusual, and I'm not sure how much I really believe it works (as in, is borne that way) in practice.)