Slashdot Mirror
Are IT Job Titles Getting Out of Control?
grudgelord asks: "Information technology jobs have always been difficult for those from non-technical disciplines to understand. However, in recent years it has become difficult for even IT professionals to divine the actual responsibilities of a given position's role as job titles become increasingly more nebulous and the descriptions more buzz-wordy. At one time, we all had a reasonable grasp of the role of a 'System Administrator' or 'Helpdesk Technician' but now such roles may actually have significant DBA or developer responsibilities bundled into a lesser job title (such as the recent trend of 'Desktop Support Techs' with SQL DBA responsibilities), often robbing the holder of a fair position (and traditionally better paid) title on the résumé. Are these trends a contrivance by corporations to get more 'value' from IT professionals by bundling responsibilities of higher paid jobs into lesser roles and to evade competitive salary by creating titles that have no analogue on pay-scale indexes? Has there ever been a proposed standard for information technology position titles (or at least some form of translation guide)? How do Slashdot job searchers contend with these wildly varying, and increasingly vague titles that seem to have saturated the industry, or worse, when they've been festooned with an inaccurate or absurd job title?"
Yeah, that's pretty descriptive, it's all I put on my resume and they know EXACTLY what my career was about.
I'd love to know the man-hour charges racked up scratching our collective heads about what the titles and job descriptions needed to be.
I especially loved being an architect -- I had as difficult time defining it to people as they had grasping it.
I also get (got) a kick out of people and their "I LOVE ME" walls in their offices and cubicles, pasting and taping up all of their certificates for classes they'd taken, certifications achieved, etc. In the final analysis, I don't ever see a consistent and understandable title/job description semantic, especially in IT where the landscape changes dramatically sometimes in months. (Other professions seem not much better defined, btw.) If your management is good, they're more tuned into and cognizant of what each employee does well and how to balance work loads accordingly. If they're not, they'll obsess about job titles (sometimes employees do the same, and drive management crazy).
I'm a DHCP and DNS Dominatrix. I'm not even a woman. Craziness. Pays well, though. Get to wear jeans. And a ball gag.
If you go to some site that's based off government data, you'll notice there are standardized job titles in IT, they are just all obselete.
There's programmer, and systems analyst, and business analyst and etc, with about 5 grades of each, and the descriptions all pretty much sound the same. Then there's still categories for "system operator" and very obselete things like that.
So it's not so much we don't have standardized job titles, they just are 20 years out of date.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I think it's more about a manager trying to justify his position by "re-organizing" and "streamlining" positions and their descriptions. For instance, I'm a Java developer. You would think my job description would be "Senior Java Developer" or "Java Developer III" or something... no, I'm an "Information Design Specialist".
To me it doesn't affect my job or my pay, so they can call my position anything they feel like. When I choose to move on I'm still putting "Java Developer" on my resume.
Dig up the General Schedule (GS) tables that the Federal Government uses to pay its employees.
There is a General Schedule table w/specific requirements for pretty much any position you can think of... and it'll serve as a good starting point.
I'd also suggest you find someone who is well versed in these GS tables & pay scales, because they are not uniform & will vary by agency and geographic location.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Euphemistic, unclear, and non-standardized job descriptions are common no matter the field. Of course, it's more common in places where there is high demand and low job quality: workers at Subway are called "sandwich artists", telemarketing is "enumeration-type work".
Some job listing sites do require employers to use standardized job titles. The Government of Canada's Job Bank website uses a dewey-decimal-like National Occupation Classification, so that at least you can understand what type of work is being described.
The detailed job description? Well, the devil's in the details. Read the employment contract before you sign it.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I've always had a beef with the "Network Administrator" title being applied to a Windows Administrator job. A network administrator keeps your LANs and WANs running, not administering a Windows exchange server. The two jobs are totally separate and a Windows administrator doesn't even come close to anything that should be called a network administrator, and vice-versa.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
Slightly off topic, might be IT related, since it was a software thing. Guy I have met in the CS program at my school came back one day from his internship with his bosses business card. His boss was the "Director of Product Enhancements". However on the front of the card it was given as an acronym, DOPE.
For 2 reasons it was funny. One it came straight out of a Dilbert comic, the prof found it incredibly funny too.
2nd reason, apparently this manager requested that every first letter in his title be in the acronym. Originally it was just DPE. His boss apparently remains completely oblivious.
I was also suprised considering how small the company was.
You mad
The IT industry does tend to overuse the term "engineer" a bit too much. I have had that term applied to myself and I am not an engineer; it still bugs the crap out of me.
WARNING: Offtopic content follows.
/. inbox reply messages and hit the "Parent" link, I get an awkward blank post with no real tag information whatsoever (not my original comment like it should be).
/. needs a site-specific place where bugs like this can be announced, and where people can talk about it without mucking up a story with posts like this one (or is there a place already? am I blind?).
DO NOT reply to this message (but post an AC reply to the top level of the story, if you feel so compelled; read on).
I am experiencing a very awkward phenomenon; only top-level comments seem to be showing up, i.e. I can't see any replies.
I got four messages that four replies were made to a post I made earlier today, yet my user page does not show a reply count on that comment, and viewing the story on -1 does not reveal them either (but does reveal my top level comment). If I count the number of posts I see in the story, it doesn't match the number listed under the story (even on -1). If I click the reply link in my
Is this just me? I'm thinking not, after the no moderator bug that went on for a week or so, but I really have no idea. I tried logging out, same problem... I can't imagine it would single out my IP address only...
If it's not just me, then please note that replying to this message will do absolutely nothing (as I don't get messages for replies to my AC posts, nor does anyone, and it seems thats the only way I can tell if someone replied at this point... nobody else would see it either).
If this is you too, and you want to at least see who replied to your comment, subscribe to reply messages (as they won't show up in your user page, but you will get a message about it).
VERY VERY VERY sorry for posting off topic, particularly if only my instance of Slashdot is just being retarded. I posted as AC so I'd have a starting rank of 0 rather than 2 (so people trying to read only the good stuff at 1 or 2+ don't have to read it).
Perhaps
Thx..
IT Grunt. Thread over.
The IT title thing jumped the shark at "Webmaster" as a real job title.
It's all been re-arranging deck chairs since then.
Seriously.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
For non-managerial positions:
Sled Dog
Lead sled dog (same work, better view)
My (nontechnical) boss once told me he thought of me as "Mr. Go To".
I said, "fine, just don't mention it to anybody else."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A friend of mine when presented with the option to join a startup asked for the title of 'Eyes and Ears'. Now that looked sweet on a business card.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
Chief Technical Dude.
It's fitting & I liked it, so that's what my title is.
Though a friend of mind (in IT) had on his business card Director, Piratical Affairs. Which is better.
--Pete
H-1B agencies are natorious for manipulating job titles. This allows them to bring in avdanced experts and pay them shit.
Table-ized A.I.
I work in Tech Support, and I've been in the job market for a while now. (Outsourcing; go fig!) I've been seeing ads for "Help Desk Analyst" for the past few months. Checking, they have nothing to do with tech support or work on any help desk. Instead, a help desk analyst goes over support tickets to see what the average call time is, how many calls it takes to close it and so on. It's nothing more or less than a bean counter second-guessing the techs and trying to squeeze as many calls into each poor sod's work day as possible.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Need we say more?
How we know is more important than what we know.
They're much more willing to give you a fancy job title rather than a decent salary.
In response to this post
I have the same problem. My "Chief Lizard Wrangler" gag is visible from my list of posts, but is mislinked to a blank parent. Something weird is going on.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"Rockstar Programmer"
I mean seriously, how are you ever going to get any work done when you're busy snorting coke off of the breasts of groupies? A real programmer wouldn't know what the hell to do with a groupie in the first place, though the coke would probably come in handy for month long hacking runs (though this may explain the quality of some of the commercial code I've seen).
And the attrition rate would be horrible. In a larger organization you'd probably have to drag a overdosed programmer out of a cube every morning.
No, not the job title for me.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
This is very simple. When you interview, you insist on clarity of job role, and then you turn them down if the title or compensation is misleading or inappropriate. There is no shortage of quality jobs, but you may have to be resolute about getting what you've earned. This has always been true; it is not something new.
Ok, so does that mean I can be Assistant Regional Manager, instead of Assistant TO the Regional Manager?
Dwight
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
What gets me is that the pointy-haired types attach so much baggage to the title, like it's a cattle brand or something. Especially with the current corporate environment (thank you, Sarbanes-Oxley), the same exact job can mean two different things, depending on the title...
For example, I work for a fairly big Fortune 500 as a developer-slash-DBA-slash-webmaster (you know the drill, many hats, one paycheck). Last month, I was "Systems Development Specialist". Until they decided that anyone with "developer" in the title was an offshored cubicle dweller with all intention of getting their hands on some identities and credit cards (hey, I didn't make this generalization, don't blame me). I was already busted down from having domain admin privileges to local admin on just a few boxes (SQL server, webserver, development server, and my own PC). After the new title policy change, I was going to lose everything but the developer login, and I would even lose local privileges on my own PC. That was pretty much the last straw for me, since I figured after 7 years of pre-SOX full access, where if I'd had the will (and total lack of morals) to do so, I could have made it out of there with thousands of credit card numbers. What do they reward my loyalty with? Shackles. "Here, wear these boxing gloves when you code, it'll be harder for you to do it, but our data will be safe from your evil wicked ways!"
Anyway, as I was about to hand in my notice, my immediate supervisor, a down-in-the-trenches network guy who ended up Site IT Manager, told me he managed to get my title switched to "Senior Information Management Specialist". Guess what my job description is? Exactly the same as System Development Specialist, although couched in more generic terms to prevent any instances of "developer" or "programmer" to show up. And now I have my access back, and I don't have to have someone hold my hand and wipe my ass when I implement change controls from my dev environment to production. All because of a few words in the title, I went from criminal suspect to a functional member of the IT staff.
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of.
There's "Sales Engineers", and "Level One Engineers", and god only know what else. Level one is button pushing, they're TECHNICIANS - people with technical experience, who do what they're told. Then are the real ENGINEERS, who design things (the buttons that the technicians push). Then there are ARCHITECTS, who form all the stuff into a cohesive whole.
There is no "Systems Engineer II", or "Support Engineer III" - you are a technician. Push buttons, don't think.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
That's why you shouldn't care so much about the title. It's more about the bosses.
Comes down to:
1) Who do you report to and need to make happy?
2) What do you need to do to achieve 1) and what can you do
3) What do you get as compensation for doing 2) and 1)
Who your boss is helps a lot.
Your job title could be Senior Microsoft Janitor (in charge of care and cleaning of Windows) for all you care.
Your supervisor obviously figured out a way to get the system to work... That's what decent middle managers have to do. May involve some ugly hacks sometimes...
"What gets me is that the pointy-haired types attach so much baggage to the title, like it's a cattle brand or something. "
Hacker, Cracker.
Dear poster.
/.?! Bugs!
Yes I've been having the same problem. It's not just you.
All this idiotic AC posting, and what have you given me in return,
Simple. Übergeek. My employer put it on my business cards. Hell, they even put it on my offer letter.
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad
It happens everywhere (and has been for a good 5+ years now).
Basically, low-end/crap jobs are being given fancier (and fancier still) job titles because:
* They attract poseurs who can handle the low pay that goes with them as long as their job sounds impressive to their peers.
* They look impressive in a Resume (thus being an acceptable stepping-stone job - used to attract people to low-skill, high-turnover positions)
* It's easier to get people to work a bad job if it sounds important
* The cotton-wool generation just starting to get into the workforce, who have been brought up being told they can never lose and never having had their feelings hurt, don't get all depressed about "only" being a "Secretary" or something similarly mundane.
So, he considered you dangerous?
I've worked in a few different areas, mostly accounting and IT, and this is by no means limited to one industry. At one point early in my career, I was a Credit Manager/Technical Support Officer/Photocopier repairman/Purchasing Officer - and this was in a company with 300 people on the payroll...obviously I was paid like a photocopier guy. I've had titles inflated and deflated, and at the end of the day, you gotta know what you do, and what it's worth, and forget about titles, as so many are meaningless. How many managers "manage"?
Are these trends a contrivance by corporations to get more 'value' from IT professionals by bundling responsibilities of higher paid jobs into lesser roles and to evade competitive salary by creating titles that have no analogue on pay-scale indexes?
Yep
Mine's pretty basic, and succinctly describes what I do:
Network Engineer and Software Developer
Easy, and describes my job description. Of course... when I joined, I wasn't really given a title so much as asked what I wanted it to say. Perhaps a benefit of working for a smaller company?
Makes me want to puke....no wait...makes me want to engage in an involuntary personal protein spill.
Some titles during the first internet bubble got pretty out-there.
I really was handed a business card that said "Cyberspace Engineer" on it and I have to confess to bursting out laughing.
Clever guy, important work, and the title wasn't entirely bogus but yikes.
I too can only see top level posts... What is going on here?
I'm a German CS student and while I'm mot going to be done for another two years I'd like to know whether the same nonsense is happening in Europe (and, more specifically, Germany). It'd be bad to enter the free market and spend the next two months trying to figure out what the hell the current name-du-jour for a Java developer is or why the hell they're offering me a job as an architect for the salary of a helpdesk technician (of course later I'd find out that "System Information Architect" is the current name for "Helpdesk Callcenter Phone Monkey").
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Best titles I've seen on applicant's CVs in the past 8 years are "digi-media wizard" and "e-business champion". Though that was in the late 90's. My business card says I'm "Lead Technologist", whatever that means...
Clean up on server 6. On my last job I went from Systems Admin to Systems Manager, to Project Manager and finally Special Consultant. I was cleaning up and troubleshooting the problems untrained DBAs created, I started calling myself the janitor and managed get other people using it, at least in house.
The perfect time for me to make my first post on slashdot.
I am a QA Software Tester and Localisation Support Specialist.
10 points to whoever can guess what in fact i do!
A few years ago, Intel changed the title of all the software engineers working for the software automation of the fabs to automation engineers. Interesting that the management did that when there was a mandatory market adjustment (increase) in pay for software engineers for that review cycle. They changed the titles right before the cutoff date, and screwed a few thousand engineers out of a mandatory raise.
Luckily, I got out of there before they did this. Shitty though? Yes.
We once had a person apply, and told us flat out that he was just looking to pad his resume - that he'd do anything we wanted - for a very low salary - if we'd just give him an impressive job title. We told him to take a walk.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
come on guys, don't complain it could be worse... I've recently heard from a friend seeking a job in marketing: the title read "Relational Marketing" sounds cool, jult like relational DBMS... we'll on the interview they talked to him about marketing, he replied with the current trends and everything seam ok and like an important job, the office looked important... he decided to join... On his first day, they drove him to an outside neighborhood gave him and two other guys a bunch of forms, and his "boss" told them "show him what we do, and swep the area, Ill be back at two"... He had to ring bells and sell phone lines, relational marketing isn't it? btw... he just returned home by bus and was never to be seen.
I'm a carpenter and open source programmer with 20 years of C (and _everything_ else) experience.
;-)
(After 20 years you rather emulate OO in C, thank you.
The entire premise of this ask slashdot is absurd.
Anonymous Coward
Director of technical, informational faunas and financialist analyiticalist advisor to the janitor.
i work in a tech company, mostly client services sorta stuff.
us tech types tend to get dropped into all sorts of different roles on client projects, engineer, developer, *ahem* architect, whatever.
so we dont put titles on our cards, means less to explain.
about 6 months ago, in another round of marketspeak genius, the 'business' types managed to snowball an email ( with html email sigs, 10k each) up to a 4.5 MB monster bickering over the difference between 'manager, client projects', and 'client projects manager'.
when really, all i need em to have is 'coffee bi-atch'
My last job was supposed to be an IT job. I was a database admin/Programmer. I had to build a database from scratch for a newly created department, write VB apps for it and maintain those apps and the database. Unfortunately, the company gave me the title of Admin Assistant and put data entry as my job description in my file despite the work I was assigned to do. It really screwed me on my resume/job history.
HR people see that in my job history and don't take me seriously when I apply for simular work. >:-(
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
At one time, we all had a reasonable grasp of the role of a 'System Administrator' or 'Helpdesk Technician' but now such roles may actually have significant DBA or developer responsibilities bundled into a lesser job title (such as the recent trend of 'Desktop Support Techs' with SQL DBA responsibilities), often robbing the holder of a fair position (and traditionally better paid) title on the résumé.
Help desk techs doing SQL DBA work? And supposedly this is a "recent trend?" My suspicion is that it isn't a trend, but that instead some Helpdesk Tech somewhere was asked to set up system DSNs in Windows and thinks that it's SQL DBA work. There's a heck of a lot more to being a DBA than just installing SQL, setting up users and creating a DB, but it's not uncommon for people who don't understand that to think that they could do it.
Now, on to the other topic, at my current employer we have several different titles in the IT department: Helpdesk Tech, Network Engineer, Project Manager, Application Specialist, Developer, and Director. Those all seem pretty standard to me, though in a larger company the duties would be a little more granular. For example, the HelpDesk Tech job would be split out into HelpDesk Operator and PC Tech and the Network Engineer would be split into Networking Admin/Engineer and Systems Admin/Engineer, and the Developer would be split into DBA and Developer.
At most places I have worked over the past 10 years it's been basically the same breakdown, with higher or lower levels of granularity. I suspect that if you had a very small company with a very limited IT budget and owners/managers with no IT knowledge, you might get someone looking to hire a HelpDesk Tech and expect them to be able to manage everything. After all, to most users you always call the HelpDesk regardless of whether your needs are as low level as a new mouse or as high level as a boinked application server.
Now, if you're working for someone who expects you to do the work of 2 or 3 widely varying jobs for the salary of a HelpDesk tech, well, any sensible person who had the skills to do the job would either demand more money or go elsewhere. If they didn't have he skills, they could either stay and learn them or go elsewhere.
Someone in my company had business cards with the title 'Cluster Ninja'.
Offtopic: Why am I not seeing any replies to comments? Woo hoo, no one can disagree with me!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In my 20 years of IT experience, I have NEVER held a position that was limited to its job description. Every job required me to take on additional responsibilities outside my defined job description. And conversely, when I hired people, it was not based solely not on their focused skills, but for their versatility and diversity of experience.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I've been a one-man show at various places with titles like 'IT Support'.
Hmmm. Sure I provide support but that can be carrying computers or moving the email service between servers in realtime.
Now its 'IT Administrator' and I kind of hate it. I wanted Network Admin or System Admin since I do both and they're standard. What the heck is IT Administrator anyway? "I think I administer IT."
Yes. The idea is to marginalize the IT staff so pay can be cut. Also, such tactics can be used to support outsourcing roles to overseas locations and to support H1B visas.
To the best of my knowledge, no. I would love to see one though. After all, how many people would consider themselves "junior" anything with 8 years experience? (Yes, I saw an ad for a Junior Programmer that required a minimum of 8 years experience with C.) Part of the problem is who would right such a guide and how to require business to use those job titles?
Very carefully. What kills me is when companies advertise for a position and use the ever-present "and other assigned duties" to change the job AFTER one is hired. Such as hiring a "Desktop Support Technician" and then assigning server admin and DBA duties to the person.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I know an HR manager pretty well (GF). Her department actually tries to create new titles for the explicit purpose listed here in this article, to confuse the pay scale so that they can pay less for the same work, by shifting respectability.
I have actually seen an ad for a "Mail room/PC Admin" job paying some stupid low amount because most of your duties where "Mail Room" but you still needed to know PC Admin stuff in case you where required to "Admin a PC" every once in a while.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit!
In our corporate directory, I'm listed as "CNSLT - SYS ARCH/ANLY" which (since it's never been spelled out for me) I'm going to assume expands to "Consultant - System Architecture / Analysis". I'm not a consultant, nor do I architect or analyze anything.
In larger businesses, a job title isn't meant to be descriptive and no one is thinking about what it looks like on a resume (trust me). A title is meant to give the HR people something to reference when they're assigning levels – i.e. numerical, or, AVP, or whatever – and pay scales.
Funny thing is... in my experience, it's normally the managers in the technical areas that are asked to make up the titles and job descriptions. I think they make them purposefully vague so their people don't come back and say "that's not part of my job!" when the PHB needs them to be "flexible" (define that as you will).
ged
One of my first titles was "Director of Software". I had a staff of one. I too, was once a "Senior MTS" (at a "Baby Bell") - I was made "Senior MTS" straight from hourly contractor, over many MTS n staffers (clock-punchers) who had been on the job for 10+ years. The only other Senior MTS was over 30 years my senior and about to retire.
I had the largest staff as a "senior software engineer", but I made the most money with no staff and no title, as an independent contractor.
As far as describing what I do - it is always the same. For non-technical family and acquaintences, "I do things with computers" is adequate. For technical business contacts; "I can solve your problem " is usually about right.
I once knew a Ph.D. consultant who created complex signal processing algorithms - his business card actually said "Cheif Scientist and Bottle Washer".
In my experience, the bigger the company, the more the titles "matter" and the less they mean, other than a marker of longevity.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
HTML guru.
honest.
personally I liked the title "Ombudsman" which was what I was doing. anything they threw at me.
I'm currently a 'network specialist' which from the job title and 2 interviews, translated to assistant network / systems administrator, which offered average pay for this area and that position, and I knew I wouldn't be allowed to make any choices on anything anyway, because of the type of low life my boss is. Come to find out I am THE network / systems administrator, which means, all the responsibility, without the authority to make changes, and extremely low pay for the job. Nothing like being blame for network downtime when your boss over-rules your changes that would have prevented it. Pay's not worth the headache...
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
I was dealing with a vendor once who didn't know my title, so when I received snail-mail from them, it was addressed to:
My Name
Chief Technical Guy on Project
Company Address....
I cut it out and taped it to my monitor so everyone would know that I'm kind of a big deal.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
"involuntary personal protein spill" sounds like something that would fall under "public lewdness" or "indecent exposure"
A little while after I started my current job, I went through the hoops to get business cards. Given that I transitioned from temp fill-in for a stress leave to full time when the guy quit, I went to my boss and asked him what my official job title was. The answer? "I don't know". I got to sit down with HR as they went over the list of every possible title until we found one that sounded sufficient.
The fact is that except for the occasional rigidly designed corporate structure, almost every place simply expects that their "geeks" will take care of the "geek stuff". It confuses them to separate it out into separate areas, so they don't. Management doesn't understand the difference between the site server and the telecom server, or anything else, they just know "it's a computer, you're the computer guy".
Right now, I do user support, user training, hardware repair/upgrades, all the telecom work, server maintenance, programming, reporting, electronic billing, system security, system enhancements, and some app design. But it's just easier (and cheaper) to call me a "Technical Specialist".
Small businesses don't care about titles because the geek does everything anyways. Midsize businesses don't care about titles because they don't understand the difference. Large businesses don't care about titles because they can call you "Helpdesk Analyst", stick "Other duties as assigned" in your job description, and then get you to do whatever they want but still pay you as if you were entry-level tech support. And until geeks start having a bit more ego and push for titles (and therefore pay grades) that match their duties, it's going to stay that way.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Assistant Supervisor of Technical Affairs and Development, Southern Region. :)
Job title on a business card i have collected.
Needless to say, the guy works for a company with a hugemongous bureacracy
That's seriously all my business cards say, and it's close enough to accurate for my needs.
There are systems. I operate them.
The term also has some nice BBS connotations, even though I was never a BBS sysop back in the day.
I'm about due to have some new cards printed up, and I'm thinking of putting "BOFH" after my name, like it's a professional certification. Like what some folks do with MCSE, only not.
Well, that's what I call myself. Formally, I was a Phone Support Analyst (helpdesk), then a Client Support Analyst (desktop tech), and now I am a Business Information Systems Analyst (Codepoet :) - developing and maintaining applications using a variety of languages).
Throughout the entire career path with this organization (it's a large one - 7000+ employees), I have always had to do server maintanance - most notably in the SQL realm. So I am starting to think that SQL is fast becoming a generic skill to have (at the basic level anyways). There will always be DBA's, but a lot of the routine stuff can be handled competantly by regular I.T. staff I believe.
All is prevelant in the world...
Network Proctologist.
Now where did that packet go.....
I am a Technology Manager. But I work with a bunch of hippies so everyone is a "manager" or "director" or "VP" my job breaks down to CTO Net admin Sys admin Web admin web developer DBA business forms developer The Man help desk telecom admin chair repairman gum under table scraper all for less than I made as a desktop support specialist II but do I complain? Naaaaah. I get to save the world
I put on ... Systems Administrator because that was my job and the description of my responsibilities on my resume does reflect that. I was hired and salaried as a PC technician but doing absolutely nothing on Windows and implementing an administration on Unix/Linux/Mac I wasn't really a glorified PC technician, I was project manager, asset manager, LDAP directory administrator, systems & network administrator etc.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Senior Technology Support Specialist.
I really wish they could fit a few more words in there.
I guess it is kind of tough if you're trying to make the tiltes descriptive. I work in a smaller business and Network Admin/Sysadmin/Tech Support... etc just wouldn't fit since I have to do a little of all of those. (And they can't really call me Assistant Director of IT (even though that's really what I am) since that would mean a pay hike for me.)
Oh well I guess I'll just keep introducing myself as one of the IT guys.
Over the years I have had some great titles!
Lets see,
I started out as "MIS Applications analyst" (I converted Lotus 123 spread sheets to Excel.
"System Administrator" (I managed the systems at an ISP)
I was promoted to "MIS Director" (I Managed the IT at the same ISP with no raise)
I changed jobs and was "System/Network administrator of Product Development" or SNAPD
Then promoted to "Sr. System/Network administrator of Product Development" small raise
Then changed jobs to become "General Manager of Internet Services"
Was promoted to "Vice President of Internet Services"
Was promoted to "President" (Smallest title, no pay raise, later laid off so the CEO could "Make the payments on the RV"
Took a job as "System services and administration Level III" (Unix/AIX tech)
and now my card reads "Consultant"
When I was President of the company, the CEO had cards printed for me that listed my title as "The guy that can fire you!" He seemed to think it was funny.
Titles are what they give you when they do not want to give you a raise. They are a way for them to say "We like the job you are doing, but we do not think it is worth any more money."
The up side of all this is that most of the companies have gone out of business. I have been known to change the titles on my resume to match the job I am going after.
A friend had a co-worker at an Ottawa high tech firm who noticed that the company was asking everyone to fill out forms for new business cards. Said sharp cookie also noticed that no one was vetting these requests. So he filled out what he thought would be an excellent job title.
He got back his business cards with the title "Master of Canine Fornication" on them.
Needless to say, the company revised policy to vette subsequent card print runs after word got out. But he still has the cards.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I just landed a job as PC Desktop support whose side job is to manage a couple of servers, and learn Python for an internally developed program we have at this company, yet I am still being paid as a PC Desktop support person
"Damn Contractor"
I recall one fellow who was head of an engineering department at an electronics manufacturer, his business card read "Grand Wizard" circa 1981.
Oracle and unix guy.
...pushing "Great Knight of the Order of the Rose and the Cross, safekeeper of the Holy Places and the thereby lying omniscient heritage of the Holy Fathers of our Church In Christ" as my official title.
They turned the request down, telling me that this title wouldn't fit in a standard-sized businnes card.
.. do you program a Rockstar?
:-)
Just curious
Insert
It's interesting to see this mindset still prevail - I wholly agree with your lock down.
:-). I would see this as a Good Thing rather than a Bad Thing.
:-).
Let me turn this round a bit: if you do not have access to a system it's going to be hard to prove that you were involved in a problem or criminal activity involving that facility/service/system.
In other words, if someone screws up badly it'll be pretty easy for you to avoid "helping the police with their inquiries" because a decently managed setup would thus prove you to be not party to the events. Given the ever increasing creativity of the criminal fraternity there is an increased probability for brown stuff hitting uneven distribution methods (that's "shit hitting the fan" for the non-PC crowd
But hey, nobody can stop you finding another job..
Oh, and for the original topic, I have two business cards. One without title, the other one with - it depends on teh country/culture I'm in which one I use. As the company carries my name it's going to be a tad self-evident that it's mine anyway
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Seriously, the title sounds like a perfect description, it's pithy but approachable.
Perhaps you've been thrown off by the huge number of programming jobs that have the "analyst" added. Not that many of these people ever get to interview users and actually, you know, analyze use cases or work flows...
Right now, I'm looking for work in tech support. I get postings from various job boards with what they think is appropriate, including regular postings for "help desk analyst." Of course, it has nothing to do with what I'm interested in. I think it would be better if the job title were "trouble ticket analyst," because it would describe what the job actually does.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
i am working in the qualitymanagment of a midsized software firm in germany, my jobs classification is simple. Assistant in Qualitymanagment but when it comes to payment my job counts nothing. I get something like an callcenter worker. My Boss has alot of people who want to work so he fucks on the salaries... :(
I worked at Syncronys, makers of the infamous SoftRAM. Really. At one point I had the title "Visionary". Fortunately I avoided the later title of "felon".
# Erik
mix your metaphors before they hatch.
Somehow my business cards (and consequently paycheck) say member of technical staff.
However, looking at the business plan I am "Acting CTO" Funny how that happens
Guess I need to start pushing for a raise.
Lets see...
I'm "Systems Manager" over a "Systems Engineer" and "Systems Intern". My direct superior is the "Technical Operations Manager".
I got to pick my own title. I like it. I manage systems and the systems team. It fits. No BS, just what I do.
Jay | http://oldos.org
Another idea is that as IT changes, so does your job, and your job title might not reflect that. For example, my former boss worked at a small state university. At first, he was in a purely desktop support role, then once the big spyware/virus epedimic came out, he was the guy who administered an Active Directory server with thousands of accounts, upgraded all the Windows boxes to 2000/XP, dealt with the political fallout from faculty not having admin access anymore, and played a large role in getting a firewall up around the network. This was all within the space of about two years, and suddenly it was his subordinates, who were doing most of the PC support 'grunt work', and he was solely responsible for selecting, training, and supervising those subordinates, who had increased in number. It took him a year after it was obvious to anyone that his job had changed to get a change in job title and an appropriate change in salary, and he had to threaten to leave the company for the higher ups to get the change in motion. He technically did leave and get rehired at his new positon, meaning that he lost all his senority, that sorely pissed him off and he left a few years later.
How about getting hired with a big sounding title, then having to do DBA and development work AND provide 24/7 tech support where anyone in the world can call you, even if you are at home in bed?
No, I mean, not just people in the company, but any of the customers.
Oh yes, and you will make $10,000 less a year than just the development position would justify.
The only service NCR Self-Service provides is a place for psychopathic managers to screw around with the nobility of work.