What's the most ridiculous job title at a startup?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8000165

by qhoc • 12 years ago

17 38 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am not talking about jokes

mikestew• 12 years ago

An entire row of "directors", none of whom have more than six direct reports and no managers below them? Where I come from, those are called "leads".

webmaven• 12 years ago

Strangeberry had titles like Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry before Tivo bought them in 2004.

mlwarren• 12 years ago

Any title that incorporates Ninja, Rockstar, Pirate, Guru, etc. Also Full Stack is so misused it's becoming a joke.

qhoc2• 12 years ago

"Guru" really made my eyes rolled over. Now it's "Full Stack" I guess

jordsmi• 12 years ago

Full Stack Guru

nmjohn• 12 years ago

Is full stack that bad? You're the third or fourth person I've seen complain about it in the last few days.

Unlike ninja, it actually is a descriptive term, is it not?

cik• 12 years ago

My personal best was "Release Messiah". To this day I still cringe.

priorconsent• 12 years ago

This made my day. Thank you :)

0pc0d3• 12 years ago

Under Secretary to the Sub-Committee on A/B Testing

johnward• 12 years ago

There is a local startup where literally every single employee from the CEO, to a developer, to someone in marketing has the same job title: brander. Imagine being a developer and having to put "brander" as your previous job title.

level092• 12 years ago

Perhaps Social Media Facilitator ?

peterwwillis• 12 years ago

"Evangelist". Nothing quite as pride-instilling as being compared to a preachy religious fanatic.

andrewstuart2• 12 years ago

CEO. Any C-level title, really.

To me those titles imply a lot more structure than 3-5 employees who got enough venture capital to sustain business for about a year. Maybe I'm crazy, though.

josephschmoe• 12 years ago

It gets you in the door with other businesses. That's why people call themselves CEO/CFO/etc. It's a designation of authority rather than qualification.

bitonomics• 12 years ago

It also helps to establish some early rolls. Some with more expectations than others. We sat with one investor and they assumed that the CEO should be the one pitching for example.

Not to mention, if you are going to quit your job to build a company you don't get excited and call yourself a junior engineer. Or full stack guru.

orasis• 12 years ago

Chief Scientist

level092• 12 years ago

this link might be relevant http://www.bullshitjob.com/title/

rubiquity• 12 years ago

Web Spinner was one that a company I worked at used to label Web developers. Personally, I don't want the word "spinner" associated with me in any way, even if I was a DJ.

lscharen• 12 years ago

Everybody at the Nerdery is "co-president"

http://nerdery.com/copresident

...but it comes from a good place in memorandum of the tragic loss of one of the co-founders of the company.

relaunched• 12 years ago

I recently moved to MN and came across the nerdery and the story behind it. It's pretty moving and doesn't deserve to be on this thread. Especially considering they have actual title and CEO goes with it.

alina24• 12 years ago

"Customer Happiness Hacker/Intern/Person".

loumf• 12 years ago

I worked at a startup with a star-themed name that made an internal CRM called Astronomy. Then, they hired someone to manage it and their title was Astronomer, when it should have been something like Sales Associate.

mattbeck• 12 years ago

Years ago, while working at a VC firm (in the office pool) my wife got to pick her own title. I convinced her briefly to go with business cards with the title: Floccinaucinihilipilificatrix

api• 12 years ago

I actually saw "Scaling Sherpa" once. Clever, but lame.

RickS• 12 years ago

"Happiness Hero" in the recent Buffer salary breakdown made me cringe. Customer service is an important role at a startup, but I couldn't tell another person that job title and not feel like a joke.

There's no way of knowing this, but I'd be willing to bet that it's deterred potential hires in the past.

phantom_oracle• 12 years ago

I seriously doubt the cheesy title has deterred anyone from applying. They pay somewhere in the region of over $65K for "customer support".

Probably 5-10 times more than what a service-person doing a very similar job in outsourced India earns.

lily2014• 12 years ago

It think title "brander" is the most ridiculous

totoroisalive• 12 years ago

Founder

abhshksingh• 12 years ago

CEO 1 and CEO 2

joeclark77• 12 years ago

One company I knew had a "Director of Clever" and "Director of Delight" or something similar. They're out of business now. Nice guys though.

kromodor• 12 years ago

When I read GURU, I automatically add "scam" to it. It is biased of course, yet my past experience made me very wary of "gurus".

zaccus• 12 years ago

Anything relating to culture. If you think you can control your company's culture from the top down, then you don't understand what culture is.

paranoide• 12 years ago

"Research Specialist" and all I'd do was to Google stuff.

chadkruse• 12 years ago

COO, particularly if the company has fewer than 10 employees.

brothe2000• 12 years ago

Chief Innovation Officer always struck me as odd. Sort of says 1 person heads up innovation. Chief Techie

Startup titles should be jobs, not titles. Sales, Marketing, Development, QA.

ceedan• 12 years ago

Dream Manager. dead serious.

What's the most ridiculous job title at a startup?

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