Ask HN: What do you think about the self-promotion titles on GitHub?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23490073

by bor100003 • 6 years ago

14 10 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

On Github, on every profile people can introduce themselves. Do fancy programmer titles attract any recruiters or people just look stupid? What is the benefit of introducing yourself as "ABC, DEF, XYZ committer" or "Senior Software and Cloud Architect"? I ask specifically for github.

nailer• 6 years ago

I don't think they look stupid if you're being honest. State specific accomplishments and skills.

If you committed to well known project X, I wouldn't particularly list it unless you have a lot of commits on that project.

cpach2• 6 years ago

Some recruiters look at Github when they either search for candidates or want to assess a candidate. Not all recruiters are crappy. Some of them can give you interesting and lucrative offers. It takes maybe five minutes to write a presentation that clarifies your skills. So I don’t think it’s weird that some Github usera take that opportunity.

zorked• 6 years ago

In general it is fine to put whatever your job title is. If you are a Grand-Master Senior Foobar Engineer, that's fine.

It's silly to use things like "Thinker, dreamer and entrepreneur".

Most really great people I know only use something like "System Engineer" or "Software Developer" though. I know this super-experienced guy who has "Programmer". There may be wisdom in removing adjectives.

gpanders• 6 years ago

Indeed, the trope of "<verb>er, <verb>er, <noun>, <verb>er of <noun>s" is so overused that it's basically self-effacing at this point.

benatkin2• 6 years ago

This felt negative so I flagged it. I think this from HN guidelines is related:

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work."

I get that you probably mean well, and aren't personally attacking anyone, but this post doesn't seem in line with the goals of HN.

ayakura• 6 years ago

I'll chip in because the OP's sentiment is fairly understandable, as there's no concrete metric that people use to quantify how "useful" one's tagline is on Github.

Also, you did mention that OP isn't attacking anyone, so I don't understand the purpose of flagging - even though the post may "seem" negative. I personally feel it's not.

benatkin2• 6 years ago

That isn't why I flagged it. I flagged it as a judgment call.

nicoburns• 6 years ago

Went to check what mine was. I don't even have a job title listed (there didn't seem to be a specific field, just a bio - am I missing something?).

I imagine most people are looking at your projects, not your intro. There's LinkedIn for that kind of information.

cpach2• 6 years ago

I think OP meant the bio

Ask HN: What do you think about the self-promotion titles on GitHub?

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