In the same way that it frustrates me when rich people say that money is not important, it similarly frustrates me when high-status people say that status is not important.
I don’t think title burners are paying attention to how organizations work.<p>I need to know your role or I can’t efficiently work with you. It’s arrogant and abusive to tell me “ya know I just do whatever seems to matter at the moment.” Because then I don’t know what to bring to you, nor what to keep away from you.<p>If you are a founder then people expect you to be a chaotic force who does what he pleases. Good for you. But otherwise, it doesn’t work to have people drift about. It creates anxiety for no good reason.<p>That’s not to say you can’t renegotiate your role. But having a clear role allows the people around you to decide for themselves when and how to come to you.
I hit the point recently where upon being promoted, I realized I had hit the point where my title didn't matter - people knew who I was and my reputation was out there.<p>Most liberating moment of my career so far.
I feel silly writing and saying that I'm the CEO of such a small startup like mine, but I haven't found something that will communicate what's behind that title as well.
I deleted "Senior ML/MLOps Engineer" from LinkedIn bio and wrote "Data Carpenter, Software Plumber, Container Architect, Model Trainer, Robot Guide" yesterday :))