@helmers where did you get the Señor Developer sticker?!? I have to have one of those!
I've freelanced my entire career as a developer and never had a title. I had to come up with one to help with some interviews a couple of years ago.
I deliberately went with "Sr. Developer" so I could correct people who assumed it meant Senior and tell them it was actually short for Señor.
I just got promoted to Sr. Developer after 20 years. I know a lot of people hit the ground running and became Sr. Developer after 2 or 3 years, but I'm on a different timeline. Before this, I was... actually I had no title and I'm truthfully I'm still not Sr. anything. I've been a freelancer with no title my entire 20 years as a developer & I just now needed to come up with a title to participate in a hiring process. They couldn't start off an interview like this: "Hi, welcome to the interview. We'd like to introduce you to our... uh, Sheldon. We're not actually sure what he is, but everyone knows him." Titles are weird when you're a #freelance agent who exists outside of everyone else's hierarchies. You never really know where you stand. You never get a promotion. You don't get performance reviews. The only feedback you get is that they keep asking you back and the greatest compliment you can get is that they lose sight of the reason they hired you because they've been using you like duct tape. #devlife
Henrik Helmers
Sheldon