Are IT Job Titles Getting Out of Control?

grudgelord asks: "Information technology jobs have always been difficult for those from non-technical disciplines to understand. However, in recent years it has become difficult for even IT professionals to divine the actual responsibilities of a given position's role as job titles become increasingly more nebulous and the descriptions more buzz-wordy. At one time, we all had a reasonable grasp of the role of a 'System Administrator' or 'Helpdesk Technician' but now such roles may actually have significant DBA or developer responsibilities bundled into a lesser job title (such as the recent trend of 'Desktop Support Techs' with SQL DBA responsibilities), often robbing the holder of a fair position (and traditionally better paid) title on the résumé. Are these trends a contrivance by corporations to get more 'value' from IT professionals by bundling responsibilities of higher paid jobs into lesser roles and to evade competitive salary by creating titles that have no analogue on pay-scale indexes? Has there ever been a proposed standard for information technology position titles (or at least some form of translation guide)? How do Slashdot job searchers contend with these wildly varying, and increasingly vague titles that seem to have saturated the industry, or worse, when they've been festooned with an inaccurate or absurd job title?"

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a DHCP and DNS Dominatrix. I'm not even a woman. Craziness. Pays well, though. Get to wear jeans. And a ball gag.

Two Tiers

[Anonymous Coward]

For non-managerial positions:

      Sled Dog

      Lead sled dog (same work, better view)

Well,

[hey!]

My (nontechnical) boss once told me he thought of me as "Mr. Go To".

I said, "fine, just don't mention it to anybody else."

My Personal Favorite

[CyberGarp]

A friend of mine when presented with the option to join a startup asked for the title of 'Eyes and Ears'. Now that looked sweet on a business card.

I choose my own title

[pafein]

I work at a small startup. On my first trip to the datacenter, I had to fill out a form that asked for my job title. This had never come up before, so I called my boss, and after about 30 seconds of discussion, I wrote down:

Chief Technical Dude.

It's fitting & I liked it, so that's what my title is.

Though a friend of mind (in IT) had on his business card Director, Piratical Affairs. Which is better.

Slashdot "Editor"

[QuantumG]

Need we say more?

The one I love to hate....

[plopez]

"Rockstar Programmer"

I mean seriously, how are you ever going to get any work done when you're busy snorting coke off of the breasts of groupies? A real programmer wouldn't know what the hell to do with a groupie in the first place, though the coke would probably come in handy for month long hacking runs (though this may explain the quality of some of the commercial code I've seen).

And the attrition rate would be horrible. In a larger organization you'd probably have to drag a overdosed programmer out of a cube every morning.

No, not the job title for me.

The Office

[crhylove]

Ok, so does that mean I can be Assistant Regional Manager, instead of Assistant TO the Regional Manager?

Dwight

Well...

[phagstrom]

Makes me want to puke....no wait...makes me want to engage in an involuntary personal protein spill.

Cyberspace Engineer

[seawall]

Some titles during the first internet bubble got pretty out-there.

I really was handed a business card that said "Cyberspace Engineer" on it and I have to confess to bursting out laughing.

Clever guy, important work, and the title wasn't entirely bogus but yikes.

Re:Well,

[Chris Mattern]

> My (nontechnical) boss once told me he thought of me as "Mr. Go To".

I hear that's considered harmful.

Chris Mattern