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When I see "senior" in front of any job title, I generally ignore it as essentially meaningless (and I've been a "senior" for about 20 years now). Unless a job
by commandlinefan 5y ago
When I see "senior" in front of any job title, I generally ignore it as essentially meaningless (and I've been a "senior" for about 20 years now). Unless a job title and description comes with actual managerial responsibilities (so director, VP, etc.), it doesn't seem to correlate in any way with pay, respect, job security or any real say in priorities.
- eru 5y agoEven VP doesn't have to mean much. In tech, a VP is a big deal. In finance, everyone is a VP.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoVP Engineering/Director of Engineering/CTO are all essentially the same role.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- barrkel 5y agoThey're not. VP Eng is a management role whereas CTO has an expectation of technical leadership or strategy. VP Eng has a focus on operations, the processes and mechanics of the engineering organization, whereas the CTO has a focus on the future technical path of the org.
- TheCoelacanth 5y agoNot at all. CTO is primarily a management role as well.
- barrkel 5y agoDon't really agree. In a startup, CTO is often the most technical co-founder and may be a manager, may manage VP Eng, but the role is not well defined; it's whatever the technical co-founder feels most adept at. Later on, the situation may be inverted, i.e. CTO might report to VP Eng. Usually, VP Eng reports to CEO. The point is that operational management of engineering usually flows from VP Eng, and not very often from the CTO. If the CTO does manage, it's a small shrub on the larger org tree.
- seattle_spring 5y agoAt big or established tech companies, yes. At "startups" / passion projects with between 1 and a small handful of people it's almost always a made up inflated title. The amount of resumes I've seen with "CTO / VP of Eng" at some hoaky parking app made in a weekend in enough to raise red flags anytime I see the title.
- commandlinefan 5y agoI was one of those people, about 8 years ago - my title was VP, but nobody reported to me (there were only five of us) and I spent all my time programming. I'm uncomfortable even listing it on my resume, but I was there for three years, and if I change my title on the resume to better reflect what I was actually doing then, I'd actually be lying.