I haven't experienced this personally either. What I have noticed is the following: - Signaling in tech is a real thing. I believe this stems from being (under

I haven't experienced this personally either. What I have noticed is the following: - Signaling in tech is a real thing. I believe this stems from being (understandably) picky about our peers, combined with a fundamental difficulty of evaluating them. The problem is complex enough that our strong tendency is to fall back on stereotyping and other heuristics. - Many programmers (myself included) have had encounters with "Web developers" whose primary interaction with JS is copying and pasting. Of course, it's hard to say what percentage of "Web developers" fall into this category -- certainly it's just a small proportion of the whole -- but enough of this type exist that "Web developer" is not always a positive signal -- indeed, it can be negative for some people. - The above issue appears to be self-reinforcing, because the more the tech culture becomes aware of the problem, the more the stigma grows for existing Web developers that have not changed their title. Posts like the OP's are valuable because they work to correct our cultural narrative. I'd expect the most likely people to experience this are "Web developers" who haven't yet accrued enough other signals of their competency (like experience, charisma, or similarity with their peers). e.g. a soft-spoken female Web developer without a lot of experience sounds like an archetype where this could be an issue. Of course, it's a game of chance. But the odds are incredibly different for each person.