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?
Just know that title and salary does not always follow each other. I know many software engineers that are maybe only senior of title but hast the knowledge and responsibilities as a principal engineer - often with a salary higher than most other principals. It’s all about proving your worth - not about what your title claim about your worth. In many companies with offices in India they invent a fuckload of faux titles for the Indian employees - why? Because it is considered a failure of you do not get a new title every 2-3 years in IT in India. No extras comes with the title - just a word on the title line.