Would it be beneficial to my career advancement to upgrade my workplace designation?

Question

I'm in a software company for 3 years. During this time I've successfully upgraded my designation from Jr. Software Developer to Software Developer. In the meantime, I've also further upgraded my development and programming skills.

Now, using the skills acquired during my time there, I've developed several Hybrid and Web applications including freelance work. Now, our appraisals are approaching and this is also an opportunity to upgrade my designation. After searching on the internet I think my designation should be Full Stack .NET Developer.

Apart from the technical requirements of that, I have also full filled some basic soft skills that I perceive to be essential to becoming a full stack developer.

Question

Now my question breaks into three parts

1- Should I make a case to upgrade my designation from Software Developer to Full Stack DotNet Developer?

2- What should be the job title, if I'm doing full stack DotNet and hybrid application development?

Answer 1

A job title follows no regulations. Your company could name you "Her Highness the Software Developing Goddess of Her Majesties Service" and it would mean nothing (other than the company being slightly weird).

"Fullstack" is a description with what you work with, not how good or experienced you are, so there is no benefit over your current title, that already says you can do all kinds of software development.

If you have advanced from Junior Software Developer to Software Developer, the next logical step might be Senior Software Developer. As there is no drawback, I'd say go for it.

But be aware that there is no valid comparison between companies. My current company for example has only one title for developers: "Software Developer". Sure there is new one's and very experienced one's, but nobody gives a piece about their title, so there is just this one designation for all of us. My old MegaCorp had a myriad of job titles. Most of them did not reflect what people were capable of, because they were given by a quota. A team had two seniors, period. If you were a new hire, no matter how good and experienced you were, you would not be a senior for a long time, basically you only got promoted if one of the current senior left or got promoted themselves. Which is kinda stupid, because a title is about the cheapest things you can make people happy with, just a cost-free fantasy name on a piece of paper. But as you see, titles are not regulated and don't mean the same thing across companies. Get the one that makes you happy.

Answer 2

This is probably a bad idea. The title “software developer” is generic enough that you can subsequently pivot into any industry. Whereas “fullstack dotnet” might sound impressive at first, it really pigeonholes you as a Windows-only webdev, you need to be very sure that’s really what you want. If you really need a title upgrade, go for a prefix of Lead.

Answer 3

For your situation:

Step 1: determine what the next job title is in your organization/company.
Step 2: Determine if there are requirements that must be met to qualify for the next title.
Step 3: Determine if you do meet those requirements.
Step 4: Determine if there is a benefit to the company to give you that promotion.
Step 5: Plan how to prove your deserve the promotion.

I have worked for some companies where the path through the job title is well defined. Some requirements were easy to achieve (x years of experience); others were well defined (Masters) but could be also met by additional years; Some were harder to define related to becoming well respected member of the team used as a resource by other teams.

I have worked with companies that just had big broad bands: Junior member of the technical staff, member of the technical staff, senior member of the technical staff.

In some places the key to a promotion was being able to prove they could bid you into positions where they could charge their customers more money. It didn't matter what they called you, the important thing was that they could charge higher rates. Thus they could pay you more. To get the promotion you needed to know the job descriptions their customers were looking for.

That benefit to the company is the key. Paying you more does make it more likely you will stay, but paying you more becasue they can charge more for your hours is a big benefit for them.

In the abstract titles mean nothing. They don't translate from one company to the next. I have worked with companies with three broad bands for non-managers; and I have worked with ones that divided mathematicians, engineers, and programmers into 7 distinct levels each.