Are IT Job Titles Getting Out of Control? 209
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?"
describes my career: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's pretty descriptive, it's all I put on my resume and they know EXACTLY what my career was about.
I'd love to know the man-hour charges racked up scratching our collective heads about what the titles and job descriptions needed to be.
I especially loved being an architect -- I had as difficult time defining it to people as they had grasping it.
I also get (got) a kick out of people and their "I LOVE ME" walls in their offices and cubicles, pasting and taping up all of their certificates for classes they'd taken, certifications achieved, etc. In the final analysis, I don't ever see a consistent and understandable title/job description semantic, especially in IT where the landscape changes dramatically sometimes in months. (Other professions seem not much better defined, btw.) If your management is good, they're more tuned into and cognizant of what each employee does well and how to balance work loads accordingly. If they're not, they'll obsess about job titles (sometimes employees do the same, and drive management crazy).
Some thing for dilbert (Score:4, Interesting)
For 2 reasons it was funny. One it came straight out of a Dilbert comic, the prof found it incredibly funny too.
2nd reason, apparently this manager requested that every first letter in his title be in the acronym. Originally it was just DPE. His boss apparently remains completely oblivious.
I was also suprised considering how small the company was.
WTF is going on? (Score:1, Interesting)
DO NOT reply to this message (but post an AC reply to the top level of the story, if you feel so compelled; read on).
I am experiencing a very awkward phenomenon; only top-level comments seem to be showing up, i.e. I can't see any replies.
I got four messages that four replies were made to a post I made earlier today, yet my user page does not show a reply count on that comment, and viewing the story on -1 does not reveal them either (but does reveal my top level comment). If I count the number of posts I see in the story, it doesn't match the number listed under the story (even on -1). If I click the reply link in my
Is this just me? I'm thinking not, after the no moderator bug that went on for a week or so, but I really have no idea. I tried logging out, same problem... I can't imagine it would single out my IP address only...
If it's not just me, then please note that replying to this message will do absolutely nothing (as I don't get messages for replies to my AC posts, nor does anyone, and it seems thats the only way I can tell if someone replied at this point... nobody else would see it either).
If this is you too, and you want to at least see who replied to your comment, subscribe to reply messages (as they won't show up in your user page, but you will get a message about it).
VERY VERY VERY sorry for posting off topic, particularly if only my instance of Slashdot is just being retarded. I posted as AC so I'd have a starting rank of 0 rather than 2 (so people trying to read only the good stuff at 1 or 2+ don't have to read it).
Perhaps
Thx..
Old trick by H-1B agencies (Score:3, Interesting)
One meaningless title I've been seeing (Score:4, Interesting)
W hat is going on? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have the same problem. My "Chief Lizard Wrangler [slashdot.org]" gag is visible from my list of posts [slashdot.org], but is mislinked to a blank parent [slashdot.org]. Something weird is going on.
What's in a name? Criminal intent, apparently... (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, I work for a fairly big Fortune 500 as a developer-slash-DBA-slash-webmaster (you know the drill, many hats, one paycheck). Last month, I was "Systems Development Specialist". Until they decided that anyone with "developer" in the title was an offshored cubicle dweller with all intention of getting their hands on some identities and credit cards (hey, I didn't make this generalization, don't blame me). I was already busted down from having domain admin privileges to local admin on just a few boxes (SQL server, webserver, development server, and my own PC). After the new title policy change, I was going to lose everything but the developer login, and I would even lose local privileges on my own PC. That was pretty much the last straw for me, since I figured after 7 years of pre-SOX full access, where if I'd had the will (and total lack of morals) to do so, I could have made it out of there with thousands of credit card numbers. What do they reward my loyalty with? Shackles. "Here, wear these boxing gloves when you code, it'll be harder for you to do it, but our data will be safe from your evil wicked ways!"
Anyway, as I was about to hand in my notice, my immediate supervisor, a down-in-the-trenches network guy who ended up Site IT Manager, told me he managed to get my title switched to "Senior Information Management Specialist". Guess what my job description is? Exactly the same as System Development Specialist, although couched in more generic terms to prevent any instances of "developer" or "programmer" to show up. And now I have my access back, and I don't have to have someone hold my hand and wipe my ass when I implement change controls from my dev environment to production. All because of a few words in the title, I went from criminal suspect to a functional member of the IT staff.
It's not just IT (Score:5, Interesting)
It happens everywhere (and has been for a good 5+ years now).
Basically, low-end/crap jobs are being given fancier (and fancier still) job titles because:
* They attract poseurs who can handle the low pay that goes with them as long as their job sounds impressive to their peers.
* They look impressive in a Resume (thus being an acceptable stepping-stone job - used to attract people to low-skill, high-turnover positions)
* It's easier to get people to work a bad job if it sounds important
* The cotton-wool generation just starting to get into the workforce, who have been brought up being told they can never lose and never having had their feelings hurt, don't get all depressed about "only" being a "Secretary" or something similarly mundane.
Hmmm.... (Score:3, Interesting)