I’ve seen people call themselves “senior” after 3 years on the job, other become CTOs in the same time, and others still have a senior title after 20(!) years in the industry yet have a fuckton of technical experience.
I’ve heard that they are all just titles and opinions from “if you don’t have the technical skill you can’t call yourself a senior”, to “senior and staff are just a feeling, principal is the actual senior” and “staff? above senior? we call that manager”.
What’s your story? Is there a ladder? Do you feel like you belong on it? Where are you on it? Does it make sense? Did you see major bumps in salary? Did titles count at all?
I’m currently a “Principal” which is the next level up from Senior. Honestly I’m pretty happy with my current title because it’s a pretty good balance between pay and responsibilities. The next step up is also fine with me (Senior Principal) because that means another pay bump, but it will probably where I’d want to stop advancing.
Like a lot of people, the goal is to be paid the highest possible with the fewest responsibilities. I’m not interested in taking a managerial/supervisory career track because that just adds responsibilities and politics. I’m happy being an individual contributor so I just need to worry about my own work and that’s it.