How to choose a job title when I was the only developer working on a project?

Question

So a while ago I worked on a mobile game where I was the only programmer/developer. I'm confused as to how to name my position - officially, my title was "Lead mobile games developer", since the company had plans for further expansion in this field once their first mobile game becomes successful.

Well, it didn't, and I left before any expansion happened, and now I feel that this title doesn't really suit my experience there, since I didn't "lead" anyone, I was the only programmer. In game-dev slang I would be called a "one man army" but I'm not sure this will look good on a resume I want to send to companies unrelated to game development. I want to stress the fact that I did virtually all of the programming of this app.

What title should I put on my resume? I was thinking of sticking with the "lead" one and adding a footnote that I was actually the only programmer on this project but I'm not sure how that will look. Thanks for any advice.

See also How to label inaccurate job titles on resume and Job Title / Job Description Mismatch — David K, Sep 19 '18 at 15:28
I have been a "senior software engineer" for a few decades now, despite also having been lead, and other things, on & off. Don't get hung up on titles. — Mawg says reinstate Monica, Sep 20 '18 at 09:26

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 19 '18 at 16:01

I once worked with front-end developer who really wanted to be a software architect, after he finished a project he chose a title "Web Architect", he decided that since he made a lot of decisions on the front-end they were architectural.

He couldn't find an architecture job - because no one is looking for "Web Architect", people look for Technical Architect, Solution Architect etc.

The moral of the story - chose a title that passes following test:

You will be happy with working at this capacity.
You will be competent from the get go, or will be able to acquire competence pretty quickly.
Recruiters and Employees actually search for this title.

You can say that you were "One Man Army" or "Sole Developer", but no one would look for that.

This - if you were hired as a Lead Developer but feel uncomfortable using that title since you weren't actually leading anyone, then I'd probably just go with Senior Developer (since leads are almost always going to be senior, and that likely would have been your title if you weren't hired to be a lead). — delinear, Sep 20 '18 at 08:59

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 19 '18 at 15:25

You may be overthinking this. Different companies have different naming conventions so there is no hard a fast rule. As long as your title generally fits your type of work (don't put CEO if you weren't), it shouldn't matter.

As a hiring manager, I don't pay much attention at all to the titles on resumes I review. I care much more about what you did than what name you apply to it. The years of work across your resume give me a better starting point than a title for evaluating ranges of junior, mid, or senior.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 19 '18 at 15:56

I live in italy and here I would put it this way:

your job position -> in this case mobile games developer (if you really think that lead mobile games developer is too much for what you did)
your company
a brief description of what you did for the project (ex. Worked with {random programming language} to develop {what you developed}

In this way you are saying what you did and you are free to set both mobile games developer or lead mobile games developer as people usually look for the description of what you did.

How to choose a job title when I was the only developer working on a project?

3 Answers3