Job titles don't really explain what we do.
Especially in tech where you can have the same title as someone doing something completely different and a completely different title from someone doing exactly the same thing.
I have been thinking about this for a while and it is time to actually say it out loud.
What my title actually says
Product Application Consultant. Also internally known as Product Specialist.
When I read that on my own CV I genuinely have to resist the urge to apologize for it. Not because the work isn't good. Because the title tells you absolutely nothing about the work.
It doesn't tell you that I write JavaScript logic every day. It doesn't tell you that I make POST requests like nobody's business. It doesn't tell you that I have architected entire workflows from scratch, scoped them, built them, delivered them.
It doesn't tell you about the integrations I maintain across multiple platforms, the APIs I debug, the incidents I handle, the new projects I scope end to end.
Product Application Consultant. Sure. That.
Where it actually hurts
For a while it was just a background frustration. A slow burn. The feeling of knowing what you debugged and knowing your title gives people absolutely no indication of that.
Then I started job searching and it became a real problem.
When you are applying for roles and your title doesn't reflect your actual skill set you are starting every conversation at a deficit. Recruiters see the title before they see anything else.
And Product Application Consultant doesn't say developer. It doesn't say integration engineer. It doesn't say I have been knee deep in JavaScript and API architecture for nearly three years.
And the frustrating part? A lot of the developers I have come across are doing similar work to me. Same problems, same tools, same logic. Different title. Different perception. Different salary band.
That is not a small thing.
The title trap in tech
Tech is especially bad for this because the same title can mean completely different things at different companies. A Solutions Engineer somewhere might be doing pure sales. At another company they are building complex technical integrations. An Implementation Consultant at one place is clicking through a UI. At another they are writing code.
There is no standardization and that creates a weird invisible hierarchy where your actual skills get buried under a label that HR invented and nobody outside your team fully understands.
So what do you do about it
Honestly I am still figuring that out.
What I know is that the title is not the whole story and you cannot wait for it to tell your story for you. You have to show the work. Write about it, talk about it, build in public, make it visible somewhere that a title cannot reach.
Because you know what you debugged. You know what you built. You know how deep the work actually goes.
Your title might be lying about you. That doesn't mean you have to let it.
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