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So I work at a ~300 person company with about 5 people in the IT department. I was hired in as Database Administrator and mainly do development work (only programmer). Most of our job titles don't make sense, because we are all essentially tech support, as well. He noted that he wants our titles to reflect what we do to better help us levy more pay in the future. I also see this as an opportunity to rebrand myself in the market, even though most of the time job titles don't mean jack. We are mainly making our titles in the "senior" range.

My question is, what can I make my title since I'm the only developer (mainly web applications). Can I go as far as something like "Solutions Architect" since people do come to me with problems and I create tools to assist them / the company? Where should I go with this?

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    Just don't do what I did. Reporting Analyst, HR system built into overall company database. I changed my title to "God of Reporting"... Did not go down well at my monthly 1-to-1
    – JohnHC
    Commented Nov 9, 2016 at 15:33
  • I would suggest Data Analyst or Database Engineer rather than DBA if you concentrate more on database programming than admin. Otherwise I woudl go for the Developer or software engineer title if you do more general programming.
    – HLGEM
    Commented Nov 10, 2016 at 18:29

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It's exactly because titles rarely reflect the true reality of the position that hiring managers mostly ignore them. Instead, they will look at what you actually did, and judge you on that.

I would recommend against picking a very pompous title because that would be indicative of an organization that puts way too much weight on stroking people's egos, and you would come across as someone who is desperately trying to boost his own importance.

I mean .. even the lunch lady is a "solution architect" as far as today's special is concerned. But that's just my two cents.

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    Think ahead. While it's tempting to give yourself a cool title, also think of how that would look on a resume and what recruiters are searching for (remember, they trawl through LinkedIn etc. by using filtered searches) - if you have an obscure job title, you may not be offered targeted opportunities. You also don't want to confuse potential employers when they read your resume.
    – user44108
    Commented Nov 9, 2016 at 16:08
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    Chief Solutions Architech Officer
    – Nelson
    Commented Nov 10, 2016 at 3:37
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Don't do this. Really. If you advertise yourself as an IT architect and then go seeking and architecture position but don't speak the language that IT architects actually speak, you're going to get laughed right out of the interview! Before you jump into that frying pan, you'd better understand what IT Architects actually do. Terminology.

  • ACID

  • multithreading

  • what's a stack, and what's a heap?

  • cyclomatic complexity

  • inversion of control

  • design patterns

If you can't speak to these terms as an architect, in an interview for such a position you'll just be wasting your time and somebody else's.

There's nothing wrong with being a senior developer, proud of your work product, and striving to grow.

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