Having held roles with all of the titles you mention, I'd say relax and take the advice of a few here: * "do you really want to move to Switzerland?" *

Having held roles with all of the titles you mention, I'd say relax and take the advice of a few here: * "do you really want to move to Switzerland?" * "Roles are meaningless" * "sounds like a signal that they like you as a candidate" These resonated with me because Switzerland sounds awesome, roles are meaningless, and signal/noise ratio is a great way to think about hiring. Many people have great signal but drag a freight train of noise behind them. Having held the principal title when I was 27, most gigs beyond that were steps down in terms of title, salary, or benefits. Doesn't really matter as long as the next people hiring you can see your current value given your previous trajectory. My path is only unusual to the extent that I worked in small R&D labs and pre-VC startups so the value equation of a greenfield prototype hacker is really not what you know or have experienced, but "how fast can you learn because we just made the thing yesterday, QA'ed it today, and would like to ship tomorrow", "how fast can you go from napkin sketch to believable demo" and then "how fast can you ship clean code vs. that mess the CTO dreamed up at 3 AM?" Your trajectory may be different.