Only if "Senior Software Developer" meant something that is universally acceptable. In our organization we had a Program Manager who was responsible for 9 large

Only if "Senior Software Developer" meant something that is universally acceptable. In our organization we had a Program Manager who was responsible for 9 large projects each with several sub-projects. His job was to ensure they all these projects co-ordinate properly, have sufficient resources and provide leadership to ensure we eventually have a good cohesive product suite (thus the Program). Then I met a 20 something kid on flight who was a Program Manager for Microsoft. He organized campus recruitments or something like that. I am small organization. We upgrade titles of our developers almost every 2 years of their service. Why ? Because firstly they all are good and we want them to stay. Also, if they want to go someplace else we want them to find a better position instead of starting bottom up again. If a person does not get an upgraded title we would like such person to actually leave our organization and find a better fit instead. If a person is working 2 years and has not evolved significantly in your organization you are probably running a bad work environment. Asking such developers to show "Architectural perspective" and "communicate effectively the technical aspect" is all BS-talk. These developers are not going to work for 10 years for you, they are going to leave for some other place. There is a good chance you are losing many good capable people because of this.