My previous job title was 'Senior development engineer'. I was basically a sole developer in a midsized manufacturing firm and the go to guy for programming / supporting any software project undertaken by the company. The firm titled it 'Senior' due to my 8 years experience in programming and to reflect my pay grade. Compared to a programmer in a large corporate, software house I am probably equivalent to a mid level programmer as I am mainly self taught and haven't worked in a team programming environment.

The word 'Senior' often causes confusion with recruiters who associate this word with being in charge of a team of software developers. They also sometimes match me against position's superior to my skill level due to the word 'Senior' in my job title.

Do you think it would be wise to change my title to something like 'Software Engineer' to remove the confusion or is this a bad idea as it undermines my previous level of responsibility?.