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Craig
Craig

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'Senior Developer' Doesn't Mean What It Used To

Not long ago, the word senior actually meant something.

It meant you'd survived legacy systems, knew when not to ship, and maybe even carried a pager once. These days?

“I’m the only dev at a 3-person startup. So I guess I’m Senior Staff Lead Principal Architect III.”

Young dev with ridiculously long job title

Meanwhile, some companies are going the other direction — removing job titles altogether so no one feels left out.

Flat orgs. Inflated titles. Diluted meaning.

The title "Senior Developer" used to imply wisdom and experience. Now it might just mean “the least junior person here”.

I wrote a post about the erosion of that title, what it means across industries, and why it still matters — even if we’re all pretending it doesn’t:

👉 Read the full post on The Cynical Developer

What does “Senior” mean in your world?

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