It is a title inflation. I look around recently and see that most of my team-mates are now senior SDEs. Everyone of them has been working professionally 3 - 4 y

It is a title inflation. I look around recently and see that most of my team-mates are now senior SDEs. Everyone of them has been working professionally 3 - 4 years max. When I joined the company 10 years ago, it would take a tremendous effort to get promoted to Sr. SDE. Now it seems that I have to aim to get to Staff SDE pretty soon because of the inflation. My theory in the title inflation is because of the following causes (my speculation, may not be true): 1. Immigration laws have gotten tougher for H1-B. Companies now inflate the title to be able to justify the hire and extend visa for SDEs coming from other countries. I think it is pretty tough now to extend visa for Chinese/Indian nationals. Some of the SDE in my team went back to China to get visa and a couple of them got stuck there over a month for the visa to be approved. 2. Competition among bigger companies: if one big company inflats the title to Sr. SDE, it would get pretty tough for that SDE with only 3 - 4 years of professional experience to get the same title in another competitor. Effectively, the company satisfies the SDE with a slight raise and a newer title and also makes it harder for she/he to jump ship.