Job titles can be confusing. If you’ve ever tried to hire a WordPress consultant to build you a website, or you’ve had inquiries about your services, you’ve likely encountered some level of confusion trying to decipher what an individual (or yourself) offers based on your title.
I’ve historically called myself a WordPress Developer. Other common WordPress or web centric titles I hear are Designer, Developer, Front-end Designer, Front-end Developer, UI Developer, UX Designer, IA Developer, Back-end Developer, Full Stack Developer, Consultant, Coach, Trainer, and so on. But what does it all mean?
I had a conversation at the WordPress Birmingham meetup with an attendee that said the “Designers” he works with do work in photoshop, and then do a large majority of the front-end code as well. I also know that there are some Back-end Developers that love to do front-end code, while others wouldn’t touch CSS with a ten foot pole.
Many people make their titles business-centric. I consider myself a Consultant with our clients at Infomedia. I think I bring more to the table than an ability to spit out WordPress websites. I help design workflows. I work with clients to define their needs. I help define scope. I sit in on marketing meetings. But I also love digging into PHP and solving programming problems.
So is it fair to define our skillsets narrowly? Aren’t I more than a “WordPress Developer”? I think so. The question is, what should I call myself that allows me to quickly establish my strengths without limiting my range of abilities too dramatically?
In the end, our clients just want solutions. They come to us because they have some notion that we can provide them that service. But it can still be important to define ourselves, even if it’s just to help us remind ourselves of our own definitions of ourselves periodically.
So what do you call yourself? Does it make any sense at all in comparison to the myriad responsibilities you carry?
Web Engineer.
It felt grandiose at first. Now that I’ve been in my position for a while, it makes quite a bit more sense. There is no granular delineation by skillset at 10up. Your job is to solve problems. That can mean writing JS, custom PHP or dealing with NGINX server configuration.
Cowboy Coder.
I had no title at last gig, but clients called me “miracle worker” so that’s what I put under “title” in HipChat. 🙂
We had actually mulled last year what is good generic term for person working with WP would be http://english.stackexchange.com/q/79692/25400 and that settled on “WordPress professional”, but there were more creative ones to choose from.
I typically start with Web Developer, the average joe knows that mean I work on the innernet.
It’s usually followed by “Oh can you design me a web site?”
And I come back with “Actually, I’m more of an engineer, I don’t do much design”.
So to those who know about web dev, I tell them I’m a web engineer.
I tell people I’m a web developer and I always get the “Oh can you design me a web site?” question – I then have to attempt to explain the difference between a developer and a designer, which I always find tricky when dealing with non-techie people. Online, I now go by the title of WordPress Developer, which is accurate for the most part, but my work isn’t necessarily exclusive to WordPress so I’m trying to find something more appripriate.
*appropriate
Lead Surprise Manager
I am going to use Web Engineer moving forward.
Sounds Grand. 🙂
As Daniel noted, at 10up we use Engineer in position titles of all sorts, including development, as our team members are expected to engineer solutions, not “just” code/write them up. Most folks are Web Engineers of some variety, but a few are more specialized – Strategic Engineer, Design Engineer (that is to say, design+front-end development), UI Engineer, and in my case, Director of User Interface Engineering, as what I do is company- and even community-wide. In the case of UI engineering, it also specifies that we are developer-type as opposed to design-type.
Yeah, I call myself a trainer. But in reality, all titles are vague, no matter what you do, even outside of WordPress. Of course some narrow it down more than others. But a title is just that, a title. Clarification will always be needed or else you would have to have an extremely, detailed, long title. 🙂
I hate titles in general… Although I own my business, I don’t have that in any title be it, business card, emails etc. I just use “Web guy” – Platform and role non-specific 🙂
This is definitely an issue in the larger IT world as well. With Administrators, Engineers, Technicians, Specialists, Developers, Programmers, Analysts, and Architects … all with things like Systems, Database, Support, Communication, Network, and Technology prefixing them. Anyone confused yet?
For my web-related work, I tend to like Web Developer, though that does leave out my systems administration expertise. Hopefully my proposals and conversations with clients make it clear what I provide for them. 🙂
Just to note that you cannot legally call yourself an engineer in Canada without actually having an engineering degree (P.Eng) or being an engineer in training ( EIT ), even if you’re in training you must say so, since the title is protected (like Doctor, Dentist, etc).
Technical writer / developer. Basically I write about how to do things with WordPress and then I try to make it simple for beginner level users. To do that I sometimes code, just last week I created fully functional business website with dummy data so that I don’t miss any step that might confuse a beginner. It was fun and great learning experience. I don’t think technical writer, developer describes what I do, but its easier.
Might as well call me ‘hats’. I wear so many of them. I admit it would be nice to just have a single title, and a well defined job role.