I've seen people call themselves "senior" after 3 years on the job, other become CTOs in the same time, and others still have a senior title after 20(!) years in the industry yet have a fuckton of technical experience.
I've heard that they are all just titles and opinions from "if you don't have the technical skill you can't call yourself a senior", to "senior and staff are just a feeling, principal is the actual senior" and "staff? above senior? we call that manager".
What's your story? Is there a ladder? Do you feel like you belong on it? Where are you on it? Does it make sense? Did you see major bumps in salary? Did titles count at all?
In my short time in an actual tech company, I was baffled at the amount of cockiness. It was a startup though.
I was easily the most senior person outside of management, yet others got positions in management from the start. I did have management experience and significant success but I lack the ability to sell it.
When I complained that this isn’t what I signed up for, they pretty much told me to suck it up.
I‘m rather exceptional at what I do, yet my neural configuration makes me unable to play social games so I decided to not go on and play them. Currently helping my wife in her small company.