You see that kind of thing a lot with contract programming firms -- they give all of their programmers fancy titles because it makes them look better to potenti

You see that kind of thing a lot with contract programming firms -- they give all of their programmers fancy titles because it makes them look better to potential clients: "We only have senior software engineers available to work on your project, we don't hire junior people." In that environment the customer probably won't individually vet whomever gets put on their project. I have had recruiters tell me to use more impressive titles too.