Hi all. I'd love to hear some thoughts on this dilemma, which I suspect is not uncommon. I've been a web developer/designer for over twenty years. A few years ago, I accepted a senior web developer role at T-Mobile, working on internal sales reporting apps. The work was tough at first, but very satisfying, and my efforts were lauded by leadership. The user interfaces I designed made everyone happy. I told my wife that I'd "gone to pasture," i.e. found a good, stable company with a positive work culture, decent compensation, and a role that made use of my strengths. No more shaky agencies or panicky contract gigs. However, two years ago, my job title suddenly changed to "senior software engineer," purportedly because that was more industry standard. I almost force quit Photoshop in surprise! As a designer and developer -- hired specifically for those skillsets -- I didn't see much overlap in the engineering job description except in the loosest terms. It fit the other team members better, but I wasn't hired to duplicate their work. I was the front end/UI/UX guy. I shrugged it off; corporations are weird, no big deal. But as time went on, the higher ups threw more engineering style work at us, and told me that a senior software engineer should know these things. "But I'm not... um...doh!" There was a considerable disconnect in my skills and my inherited role, and as the department morphed around a new structure, my design and development skills were unneeded. Now I am no longer "the UI guy" or the "front end guy," but rather "the software engineer who sucks." My bonuses have plunged because I haven't ramped up my backend and database skills to match people who have been doing it for decades. My team is very supportive, but I stick out like a sore thumb at this point. And the app I built has now been deprecated, so I'm not even supporting that. I don't think it makes a good impression to internal/external recruiters. So here's the ask: I am a badass designer and developer who has been mislabeled by my current employer. When I am talking to recruiters for internal or external roles, how do I explain that my current title doesn't reflect what I can offer to a team? And will a recruiter for a UX/UI role look at my resume dubiously, saying "he's an engineer applying for a design role? HAW HAW." Is it inappropriate to retitle myself on my resume? Or split the difference and call myself a "senior software engineer, UI"? Am I just stuck and it's time to open a hot dog stand and/or shlub into middle management? Thoughts? #design #interviews #ui/ux #jobtitles #softwareengineer #transition
Titles don’t mean much. Have your resume match what you actually do. At 🍎 our titles are all generic, they don’t match what we do or what they put on career page.
Yeah I’m a “human interface designer” that’s not a real thing lmao. That also wasn’t the title on my offer letter/job posting.
Titles matter actually When I left Apple to accept a senior title position, ever since then, I've been landing Principal to Director level interviews or interests. My base pay has increased significantly but the companies I target don't offer stocks so I don't get to pay short or long term capital gains tax on stock appreciation or deduct losses
I've been in sort of the same boat, where I've had a job where the title changed 4 times in 3 years, with no change in the type of work I was doing. I just took the one that made the most sense for my resume/interviews, and explained the situation before they ran the background check just in case. Something like "Senior UI Engineer" could definitely work, since people have "engineer" stuck to the end of a bunch of non-engineering roles lately.
Do not put ‘Engineer’ on a title that doesn’t require an engineering/science degree, it’s a red flag.
But the dilemma is that his "real" job title IS software engineer
Put what jives with your story. Everything else is BS.
Dude leave. There are front end engineer or UX Engineer roles waiting for you. Try Design Technologist for fun.
X mon
X.. C nbc b
E
Front End Engineer. Now you owe me 50% of your next sign on bonus.
Put the title you were originally hired into. You can show your offer of needed and when filling out HR forms if asked just say TMO is weird that way around titles.
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Just put your original title on your resume, if you’re not a software engineer then putting that on your resume isn’t truthful either so that’s how you can always spin it. But I don’t even think you’d need to, no one asks for official references these days ...