As humans, we profile. It helps us get through noise and process things quicker; things that either don’t matter in the grand scheme of things or can be subconsciencely deduced. Profiling can also be dangerous; cause situations to be misunderstood, key information to get missed, and overall set you up for failure or worse. Job titles are a profiling tool. They should be there to help candidates understand expectations, responsibilities, and place in the organization of a role at a glance. Titles help colleagues and clients understand what you do and who to go to. Unfortunately these days, the disparity between roles titled the same thing is so wide that it makes searching for the right role like trying to climb Mt. Everest in flip-flops or the ball in a pinball machine.
The job title dilemma
Job titles should be more than marketing. They should universally mean something to everyone looking at them. They should set a stage while, as you learn more, meet the unique needs of the organization they sit in. Looking at two job descriptions for, or better yet speaking to two people holding a VP of Engineering position, you will get drastically different responses: one is hands-on coding while the other manages four Director-level managers. One is the technical architect and the other spends days meeting with stakeholders on technical strategy. And so it goes.
This difference matters because it affects three concrete things you care about as a candidate:
- Compensation and upside
- Day-to-day responsibilities and who you actually work with
- The type of impact you can make (and how that maps to your career goals)
Below is a practical, candidate-first guide to decoding titles, judging opportunities, and choosing the role that lets you make the impact you want.
Three lenses to evaluate any role
Use these lenses, in no particular order, as a checklist when you read a job description or step into an interview:
1) Compensation & total rewards
- Ask for total compensation: base, bonus, equity, and benefits. Titles don’t standardize pay — scope and risk do.
- For equity, ask about grant size, vesting schedule, dilution expectations, and any refresh policy.
- Translate equity into expected outcome scenarios (best/median/worst) relative to your needs.
2) Scope & responsibilities
- Who reports to you, directly and indirectly? Understand the org chart.
- Is the role expected to be hands-on, or to build managers and process? Ask for examples of “a week in the life.”
- Where does decision authority lie? Can this role make product/tech tradeoffs or only recommend them?
3) Impact & success metrics
- What will success look like in 3/6/12/24 months? Ask for measurable outcomes.
- Are you shipping direct product features, improving platform reliability, or scaling teams and process?
- How visible will your work be to customers and execs? Visibility matters differently depending on your goals.
What to ask in interviews for maximum impact
These are the specific questions that reveal the truth behind the title:
- “Can you walk me through the org chart and show where this role sits?”
- “What are the top three outcomes you expect from this hire in the first 90 days?”
- “Show me a recent decision this team made where the lead took a risk — what happened and how did you measure success?”
- “How much time do you expect this person to spend on hands-on engineering vs. people/process vs. strategy?”
- “What is the compensation mix for this role and standard equity grant size for similar hires?”
- “How have previous people in this role progressed — what were their next moves?”
Asking these will quickly separate roles that are marketing-sounding from roles that actually match your preferred way of working.
Quick heuristics: what the title usually implies (but verify)
- “VP / Head / Director at an early-stage startup”: likely hands-on, broad scope, equity-heavy, high autonomy, high ambiguity.
- “VP / Head at a mid-stage scale-up”: mix of building and scaling — some IC work, some org building, mixed comp.
- “VP at a large enterprise / Fortune-level”: less day-to-day coding, more org-level strategy, higher cash comp, RSUs, and structured processes.
Remember: these are heuristics. The critical step is to verify scope and success metrics in the conversation.
How to weigh impact against compensation
Impact and compensation are linked but not perfectly correlated. Use a simple framework:
- If you value ownership and building from scratch: prioritize roles with direct product/technical control and meaningful equity upside.
- If you value influence at scale and predictable outcomes: prioritize roles that give you scope over processes, teams, and cross-functional alignment with stable pay.
- If you want both: find mid-stage roles with a clear path from hands-on to people-leader, and negotiate refresh grants / career milestones.
How to ask for clarifying details before final interviews
Use this when the job posting or initial conversations are vague about scope.
Subject: Quick clarifying questions about the [ROLE] at [COMPANY]
Hi [Recruiter/Hiring Manager],
Thanks again for considering me for the [ROLE] role. To make the most efficient use of everyone’s time in the next conversation, could you help me with a few clarifying items?
- What is the current size and structure of the engineering org?
- Who would be my direct reports and peers? Can you share a simple org chart?
- What are the top 3 outcomes expected in the first 6 months?
- What is the expected balance of hands-on engineering vs. people/strategy?
- What is the target compensation mix (base / bonus / equity) for this role?
Thanks — this will help me prepare focused questions for the interview. Looking forward to our conversation.
Best, [Your Name]
Candidate decision guide
- Compensation: Confirm base + bonus + equity and run basic outcome scenarios.
- Scope: Verify direct reports, org chart, and decision authority.
- Impact: Confirm top 3 outcomes and visibility to execs/customers.
- Growth: Do you gain skills you want? Is there a clear path forward?
- Culture & tempo: Does the organization’s speed and tolerance for ambiguity fit you?
- Logistics: Location, travel, on-call expectations, and any non-standard commitments.
If most of these land in the green for you, the title is probably a fair reflection of the role you want.
Titles are shorthand. Useful, but never sufficient. As a candidate, your job is to translate shorthand into the real-world expectations, scope, and impact you’ll have day-to-day. Prioritize conversations that reveal org structure, measurable outcomes, and decision authority. Match opportunities to the kind of impact you want to make: build, scale, or operationalize.