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Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

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Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#51

Post by boondaburrah »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #10

Can we stop with the self-aggrandizing CxO titles while we are at it? I've had someone introduce themselves as a CTO of a company that has 4 people. How many other technical officers are there for you to be the chief of them? It sounds ridiculous.

In some cases, that may be your legal job title. If the 4 person company has incorporated as something like a C-corp, you have job titles to pick from the articles of incorporation form. Of course you can make up your own titles, but the department of commerce (depending on state) is gonna want to know who your C*Os are.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#53

Post by BrandoElFollito »

pluma wrote: post #5

> Yet a nationally representative study of 1,000 British adults, with which I assisted, found that 75% of British adults thought “scrum master” was a fake job title, or didn’t know for sure if it was real. I think this bit misses the point. "Scrum master" is pretty descriptive and explicit if you are the least bit familiar with Scrum methodology . Unlike the other examples which are intentionally obscure and playful,…

Agreed. To me a "churn analyst" is meaningless. So are other titles in Finznce, Legal or HR.

I guess we just have more of them in tech, no matter how you think hard, a "full stack dev" is not something you can guess if someone has not explained it to you.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#54

Post by mythrwy »

bdcravens wrote: post #13
Negitivefrags wrote: post #10

Can we stop with the self-aggrandizing CxO titles while we are at it? I've had someone introduce themselves as a CTO of a company that has 4 people. How many other technical officers are there for you to be the chief of them? It sounds ridiculous.

Is that any worse than calling yourself a "founder" of a "startup" when you did little more than a barebones MVP you pushed to Heroku?

That sounds like a lot of work.

I've seen "founders" with a Wordpress template :)

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#55

Post by lb1lf »

Back before we were bought up by $Multinational_corp, my job title read General Purpose Geek; after a couple of practical jokes in the office which were attributed to me, my boss added 'and master of shenanigans' in the employee database.

When we were being integrated in the company that bought us, some HR apparatchik called me and asked whether geekery or shenanigans was my primary role; compound titles didn't cut it.

They then realized based on my pay grade that I would be a senior engineer at the very least, and my first business cards after the merger read 'Master of advanced shenanigans'.

Then some sod spotted the title and adjusted it to the more corporate-sounding advanced project engineer. Sigh.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#56

Post by Lanthanide »

dredmorbius wrote: post #48
mirekrusin wrote: post #2

...patiently waiting for a job title with emoji.

Would you prefer being chief :smile: officer, chief :frown: officer, or chief of :tears: ?

I'll take Chief :eggplant: Officer.

(Previously known as Chief Restructuring Officer)

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#57

Post by jaclaz »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #24
matthewmacleod wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you mean, in that CxO titles sound silly. But I'm not sure what the alternative is, really - particularly when you're talking about a startup that's hopefully going to be growing a bit. It seems when you want to talk about your team, you really want to say 'This person does the business stuff, this person does the technical stuff, this person does the marketing stuff, this person helps with the technical s…

Technical Director is a better term. (In fact, it's the job title I use). It says you are in charge of tech without implying anything about the size of your company.

It depends, if you are directing only another person or two, which actually is/are actually colleague(s) "Technical Director" sounds also pretentious (to me at least).

There is nothing bad in being few/small, of course but I often have this impression that the smaller the company is the more resounding are titles on business cards.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#58

Post by thearn4 »

pluma wrote: post #5

> Yet a nationally representative study of 1,000 British adults, with which I assisted, found that 75% of British adults thought “scrum master” was a fake job title, or didn’t know for sure if it was real. I think this bit misses the point. "Scrum master" is pretty descriptive and explicit if you are the least bit familiar with Scrum methodology . Unlike the other examples which are intentionally obscure and playful,…

Scrum master feels more like a role rather than a job title. Like one thing that you do among other things.

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#59

Post by cdegroot »

motet_a wrote: post #23

IMHO, even "developer" is a stupid job title which shoud be replaced by a more descriptive one like "computer programmer" or "software engineer".

I think "software developer" describes quite well what I do on a daily basis. Better than the "principal software engineer" that adorns my business card...

(which is still better than the "principal consultant" I had on my card in the early '90s when I was a mere kid - it made a grey haired banker in the city smirk a bit and remark "well, maybe when you have some grey hairs". At least I now have plenty of that!)

Re: Incomprehensible job titles are an elitist affectation

#60

Post by cdegroot »

Agathos wrote: post #46
motet_a wrote: post #23

IMHO, even "developer" is a stupid job title which shoud be replaced by a more descriptive one like "computer programmer" or "software engineer".

Computer programmer is fine. Software engineer... I think the argument about what qualifies you as a real engineer comes up every other day on HN.

I tend to stick with the (intent of the) law here. I'm not an engineer, not in any jurisdiction I worked in.
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