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?
/thread
At some point climbing the career ladder just means taking on vastly different responsibilities. If all you want to do is code, there isn’t always the career ladder you might know from big tech. It just ends at senior.
Which doesn’t mean that your career end there, your experience is just measured by years of experience and what you achieved, not some title.