Lead vs Senior
*Update* Decided to stick with the Senior title, thanks to everyone that gave adviceš Iām negotiating a title for a new role (outside of SAP). My current title is Lead, and the role Iām considering is Senior. To my mind, Lead > Senior. What do you folks think? Should I stick with he Senior title or negotiate for a Lead title? FWIW the job responsibilities of the senior role are bigger than my current Lead responsibilities, and I know titles mean different things in different companies... interested to hear your thoughts!
TC or GTFO
Get head, not just lead. All better than senior.
What is your long term goal for a career path? Would you like your career path to be people management or individual contribution? Ask for a job title that suits your long term career vision š! Future companies will pay attention if you led/managed people or epics products Good luck!
Iād love to transition into people management so Iāll pick a suitable title for that! Thank you! āŗļø
Donāt worry so much about title. Every company maps differently.
Lead is sometimes used by experienced senior people to indicate they were in charge of something big. Sort of an IC equivalent to "head of"
āLeadā is meaningless. I see it thrown around all the time. Youāre either a manager or an IC. Lead is squishy. If manager, youāre either managing ICs or other managersāusually what a senior manager does. Or, youāre a director. Managing senior managers and so on. If IC, youāre either junior or āmid-levelā, in which case your scope is predictable and fairly limited. Or, senior. If senior, youāre probably sought out by a range of people, both within a design org and product, engineering, etc. You get a lot of shit done, accurately and quickly. Above that is principal. Sometimes it means something, often it doesnāt. In my experience it means fuck-all but it sounds cool. Where are you looking to go? Depending on what youāve done and your experience, maybe ask for principal.
The role is intended to grow into a management role, so I decided to stick with Senior for now!
The team I am on at Amazon, I am an a Sr UX Designer (L6 IC). My business title is Lead Product Designer. I have a lot more scope than the other L6s designers on my team and provide direction. The instant my business title was changed, I received an off cycle RSU grant (12). I asked my manager about the off cycle grant and they were unaware which leads me to believe that the change in business title to Lead triggered an automatic grant. At least on my team, Lead has weight.
Which company? Lead is an unofficial title everywhere Iāve worked. It doesnāt mean much. Your bonus and pay grade is tied to your āseniorā title.
Itās a pre-IPO startup with the same backers as AirBnb (I donāt wanna give more details bc anonymity) - good point about lead being a mostly unofficial title, but Iāve found at similar companies in the industry (I know this is vague sorry) Iāve seen similar official titles of Lead and Senior Lead (which tends to mean a wider-scope manager role).
I donāt wanna lose the lead title, maybe negotiating for a senior lead title a good mashup?