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Aren't you supposed to put more than just what your job title is on your resume? 
I think Senior Developer does kind of imply that you are in a senior position in your company. Unless they're trying to imply that you are a senior in the geriatric sense.
They did the same thing where I work where all the developers, designers and hardware guys were are all titled as Development Engineer starting at associate up to senior principal engineer . But they do allow us to add to our titles (Within reason) to describe what we actually do on the business cards.
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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S Houghtelin wrote: Aren't you supposed to put more than just what your job title is on your resume?
Indeed, and aren't people supposed to read more than the title before jumping to conclusions? If that was the case, I wouldn't be having this problem.
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Wjousts wrote: aren't people supposed to [Insert Proper Behavior Here] before jumping to conclusions?
If only it were so. But I do get your point.
Maybe you can add that as your reason for looking for other work... "Seeking better job title" 
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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I had an official title of Systems Alchemist several years back - I thought Architect was a bit mainstream and the connotation of producing gold from base metals (aka useful stuff from not much) was apt.
Surprisingly they went along with it & put it on my business card 
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Maybe I am missing the point here, but if you are applying for another job, just call yourself what you like on your resume - senior developer, software engineer whatever.
If you get interviewed etc. and they get references from your current employer, they ain't going to give a toss about the job title, if they even notice.
I actually don't put job titles in my resume in the main, as it can lead to confusion - one company's software engineer is another company's junior developer is another company's dogs body - so I just tend to explain the role.
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_Maxxx_ wrote: Maybe I am missing the point here, but if you are applying for another job, just call yourself what you like on your resume - senior developer, software engineer whatever.
If you get interviewed etc. and they get references from your current employer, they ain't going to give a toss about the job title, if they even notice.
Well, they won't get references from my current employer as that would rather give the game away. But what they might do is make an offer, which I accept, and then check job titles and starting / ending salary with my current (soon to be previous) employer and get mighty annoyed if I said I was "chief guru of all things awesome" and they say "no, he was junior keyboard cleaner".
That's the kind of BS that might see an offer immediately withdrawn. Certainly if I was hiring, I'd have some questions about that.
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Wjousts wrote: I was "chief guru of all things awesome" and they say "no, he was junior keyboard cleaner".
Sure, but the op said they had a job title that didn't reflect their position - and was corporate waffle. So, having got to interview it is easy to point out that one's official title is "Corporate DataWrangler, Level 5a" whereas the description you gave reflected more accurately your actual role.
Wjousts wrote: Well, they won't get references from my current employer as that would rather give the game away.
I'd assume they would once an offer was in the pipeline - that's my point, they won't know your actual job title unless your current employer tells them - at which point they have satisfied themselves you are capable of doing the job (assuming you haven't lied about your abilities, of course)
Wjousts wrote: hat's the kind of BS
It's not BS though if you do as I suggested.
In all honesty, if your job title is bottle washer, but you are writing good code every day, I (as a potential employer) wouldn't give a hoot - but I would probably expect you to have pointed out the official title at interview - and explained why a bottle washer thinks they can do this job.
Wjousts wrote: Certainly if I was hiring, I'd have some questions about that.
Yeah - you're taking it out of the context of the original question though
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_Maxxx_ wrote: Yeah - you're taking it out of the context of the original question though
Since it's my question, I don't think so 
I'm not just asking a hypothetical here. I've had two job offers already. The first one was fine, they offered me the same as what I'm currently earning, but the health insurance was terrible. To cover my whole family would have cost me somewhere in the region of an extra $8k / yr. So I turned it down.
The second one had much better insurance and I was doing just fine, until I got to the CEO who claimed he'd only just be handed my resume, but he was a "quick study". He starts asking me about how I'd handle the learning curve and how he needs people who can "hit the ground running". With hindsight, I'm a little mad at myself for not handling it better because it's BS. I know the technologies they are using, and I should have been a little more forceful on that point. I aced the interview with their technical people and they seemed really excited. I really feel I got at least partially tripped up on my current job title because he didn't read the description. He'd convinced himself that he knew what I was all about (as most CEO types do, once they get an idea in their head, it's hard to dislodge) and nothing I said made a difference. Their HR guy did call be and told me that they were looking at around a salary that would have actually be slightly less than I was earning when I started my current job...8 years ago. It would have been a cut in the region of $25K/yr. Suddenly the crappy insurance at the other one looked great!
The second one isn't completely dead. The HR guy said he'd "touch base" with me again in a couple of months time (after my bonus at my current job, which I'd also be giving up) to see if anything has changed. But to be completely honest, I've soured a little on the whole thing. If they'll low ball me that badly right from the start, I wonder how fair they'll be going forward.
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What you put on your resume doesn't need to be what HR says your title is. I always put "Software Engineer".
My official current title is "Web Developer", but I do nothing Webby at all, I do database and backend stuff. Soon I may be something like "Infrastructure Architect VI" (with no change in job duties), but I won't put that on a resume either.
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Sycophant Emeritus, Programming
Will Rogers never met me.
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My job title is The DSJB: Departmental Sh*t-Job Boy. I do all the stuff nobody else likes or wants to do.
I do the user interfaces for our products, including writing the help (we lost our tech pubs person some time ago). I write the installers for our products. I administer our servers and our *cough* SourceSafe *cough* data bases. I maintain our automated build system, an incredible abomination of VBscript, compilers, third-party tools, homegrown applications, and one Windows service. I develop our inhouse debugging tools. Everyone else does the sexy stuff that actually does something with the equipment (we build commercial ink-jet printers).
Software Zen: delete this;
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I can't think of a suffix-able title, other than "programmer" or "software engineer," that carries any heft, but perhaps one of those would do.
Apropos of nothing (and because everyone can use a laugh now and then), here are some job titles, actual and notional, that I have loved:
- Code Flogulator (an ornery SOB who had to maintain others' bad programs)
- Dogmatist-in-Chief (we assigned this to a manager who thought himself a programming genius...incorrectly)
- Right Reverend Senior Systems Analyst (we never argued with that guy)
- Under Deputy Junior Assistant Attendance Trainee, Probationary (For the new hire)
- Plenipotentiary High Exterminator (that's from Jack Vance)
- Subtraction Theorist (a friend adopted this one after he got his doctorate in mathematics)
- Galactic Commander (this one was actually used at a New Agey shop where employees picked their own titles)
...and the one I have long yearned to put on a big brass plate on my office door:
He Who Shall Not Be Bugged
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)
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When my company wouldn't give me business cards with their "prefered" title to save money, I printed and passed out my own business cards with a title of:
"Emperor of all Knowledge and Wisdom"...I soon receieved cards with my boring title.
I was waffling between that and "King of Space and Time".
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I have a question: does it matter what you put down [on the resume] as your current title? If you want to be a Senior Code Monkey, can you not list that as the current title? Point being: do prospective employers get to call and check up on you at the current job while you're still working there? What is the point of the [checkbox] for "May we contact your current employer?"?
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Most large corporations I worked for had it Programmer Analyst, appending Roman numerals or prepending Junior or Senior.
The last large corporation I worked for decided to shake things up (to make us less employable elsewhere was the suspicion) and changed them to Associate Member Technical Staff, Junior Member Technical Staff, and Senior Member Technical Staff. I believe there was another one, but I forget what it was, simply Member Technical Staff?
I preferred the places where I had R&D Programmer or Software Engineer.
My current title is Manager of Software Application Design, which I think is too wordy and I would have preferred Development over Design.
However, my desk plaque reads Universal Genius.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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Software Engineer, or Senior Software Engineer if you think your experience level justifies it. If you're not sure, stick to SW engineer -- better to have a too-low title and appear to be looking for an upgrade, than to claim to be a senior level engineer and not meet their expectations. You might miss out on an interview or two without a sufficiently lofty title, but you'll immediately fail the interview if your experience level can't justify the lofty title to them.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Whenever somebody asks me what I do for a living, I do not answer with "I'm a computer programmer", even though that is one of the main activities that justifies my paycheck. For me, "computer programmer" conjures up an image of a sun-deprived subterranean creature -- a go-between who accepts requests from the computer ignorants and performs the necessary incantations over a computer keyboard to make it happen. In "the old days" it really was that mystical. The programmer was like a priest who took your petition to the Great Mainframe. After a ritual sacrifice of punch cards and green bar paper, your prayers might be answered with a result that you could use.
I'd rather be seen as a team member who just happens to specialize in software. It's a lot like the film Oceans Eleven, where a team of specialists all work together to achieve a noble goal. (Their team also has a software specialist, albeit one with some ridiculous skills.)
(Excerpted from my Computer Science Education Week essay: Why "programmer" is not in my job title[^])
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I feel your pain; I work at a startup, so technically I am:
- Programmer in .NET and Crystal Reports
- Director of Design
- Director of QA
- Director of Customer Support
- SQL Server DBA
- IT Helpdesk
- Systems Administrator
Net effect, I don't have an official title. I don't care so much about that (most people know what I do), but if I were to look for another job, it'd be difficult to explain that in a nice corporatespeak title. So, I enjoy occasionally making up titles for my e-mail signatures (see below).
My advice: something simple that's roughly all-encompassing; in my role, I'd rock out with "Nonsense Title - Software Development".
Senior Assistant VP Director of Byte Procurement II
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I had a handful of different jobs until now, and was a programmer in each of them. I didn't notice that the job title had any influence at all when I went for an interview.
I'm a team leader atm, but I still tell everybody who asks I'm a programmer. Nobody in or outside the company seems to give a <whatever>.
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Master Developer, code does what I say!
That might get you pretty good catches
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From some of your other posts in this thread, it sounds as if you feel you're being taken for granted.
How about (one which I've had in the past) "Overseer of arcane systems"?
I guess I'm kind of fortunate in that titles have never been meaningful to me. Call me whatever helps you to sleep better at night, just ensure I'm being compensated fairly.
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Wjousts - I've been battling the same issue for years; titles created by previous employees that seem to have stuck to the corporate position title list. 
To resolve this issue, my resume states the normal segments (e.g. position title, date range, accomplishments, & bullet points) but also includes the job description for each position held. The job description can be laid out similarly to the descriptions you find on the salary research sites.
Recruiters and HR personnel understand the typical corporate position title issues, so as long as you state what it is you do at the current position and highlight the important aspects, you should be get the point across to anyone reading your resume. Truthfully, all the resume is good for is to get your foot in the door, so create it to attract potential employers. Once you're at the table, you can explain what you did at your previous position regardless of the title they bestowed upon you.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Mark
modified 30-Jan-13 14:48pm.
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