Job titles, descriptive or flattering?

Okay, so I’m a real offender. My job title is completely made up: “Writer in chief”. I toyed with “Chief Writing Officer” too but it sounded less commanding. I once met a chap whose official job title was “Proud dad.” When I visited the now-defunct General Magic in the mid-nineties they all had job titles like “Chief wizard” and so on, in keeping with the company name.

Bill Gates is now styled “Chief software architect,” whatever that means. Ubergeek, probably.

Recently, I met a “Managing Director” from the storied Carlyle Group. I was really impressed – actually he was a smart, interesting chap regardless of the title – but a friend of mine said that everybody in the investment world is called that. I’ve been struck recently by the increasing verbosity and blandness of, shall we say, mid-level managers. For example, “Solution Channel Development Manager.” I interviewed somebody six months ago whose job title was twelve words long. Somewhere I’ve got the interview transcript and I’ll remember who it was some day.
Here are some of the really good job titles I’ve come across during the interviews I’ve done:

• Artistic Director (Royal Shakespeare Company)
• Test pilot (BAE Systems)
• Co-founder (well, it was Google!)
• Manager of the Supersonic Vehicles Technology Program (NASA)
• Chief Pilot (TAA UK)
• Astronaut training supervisor (NASA)
• Principal Scientific Officer (European Union)
• Lead Mission Manager for Space Station Processing (NASA)
• Director of Shuttle Processing (NASA)

On the whole, this “research” proves that people who work in aerospace have better job titles than the rest of us.

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3. Stupid job titles correlate to lousy customer service
4. How to name your space station
5. Customer Service Representative 2.0