Should companies operate without formal job titles to preserve flexible authority and mobility?

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Lacking senior titles does not hurt recruiting or employees' later careers, and a candidate who objects to the absence of 'Director' or 'VP' is thereby signalling they are a bad fit.

Great people focus on scope and impact, not title; and companies hiring from Square cared about accomplishments, since a puffed-up title is quickly exposed in a backchannel check.

Scope: based on Square's experience

source Titles

Harry Stebbings · published Jul 21, 2023 · hedged

Candidates who negotiate hard over their title before joining are never a good hire

Scope: framed as one of his own lessons while asking whether he's wrong

15:33 20VC: Why Hiring in Tech is Broken and Founders Need to be as Good at Firing as they are Hiring, Why Product Differentiation is Unsustainable & Why the Current Generation of Tech Employees are Entitled and What Needs to Change with Jean-Denis Greze @ Plai

Eléonore Crespo · published May 9, 2025

A candidate asking for a specific title is a red flag

It signals they are coming for their own agenda rather than for the mission and impact; people who think about titles bring politics

25:38 20VC: Four Traits of the Most Successful Founders | How to Hunt and Close Talent Like a Pro and Where All Founders Go Wrong | Lessons Raising $397M From the Best Investors in the World with Eléonore Crespo @ Pigment

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

CEOs should have zero urgency about creating Director-level and higher titles, and should delay them as long as possible — ideally forever.

The goal should be a culture where scope and impact, not titles, are recognized and celebrated.

Scope: applies to Director, Senior Director, VP, SVP, EVP titles

source Titles

Mati Staniszewski · published Sep 8, 2025

Companies should operate without titles, because titles cap a person's decision-making scope and block fast internal mobility into leadership roles

Impact should determine influence from day zero; in an org of many small teams, deciding who gets titles is a distraction; a low-tenure person should be able to lead longer-tenured people, and titles once given tend to stick forever

Scope: drawn from experience starting with a five-person team; they still designate a current lead per sub-team to break ties, but leads are not permanent

47:08 20VC: ElevenLabs Hits $200M ARR: The Untold Story of Europe's Fastest Growing AI Startup | The Real Cost of AI from Talent to Data Centres | How US VCs are in a Different League to Europeans | The Future of Foundation Models with Mati Staniszewski

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Companies should give individual contributors precisely descriptive job titles and call every people manager a 'Lead' with a descriptive scope, replacing Manager, Director and VP.

Descriptive titles force you to spell out each person's job description concisely, which is a good organizational design goal in itself.

source Titles

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Descriptive 'Lead' titles preserve organizational navigability while removing title-driven motivation, politics, promotion campaigns and the need to untitle, because 'Lead' carries no inherent power or glory.

With no ladder of titles to aspire to, meetings cannot segregate by title, there are no new titles to offer, and Leads can report to Leads without a title change.

source Titles

Fabien Pinckaers · published Feb 12, 2025

Titles should be abolished as a status system — Odoo lets employees pick their own titles because what you do matters, not your title, and people are smart enough not to abuse it

He wants to kill title-seeking; most people won't inflate their own title

62:11 Employees choose own titles to kill title seeking status

Fabien Pinckaers · published Feb 12, 2025

A candidate caring a lot about their title is not a red flag

Some people simply like titles and that's okay — at Odoo people choose their own title, and those who don't care take a funny one

68:23 Caring about title is not a red flag in hiring

Jean-Denis Greze · published Jul 21, 2023

Caring a lot about titles is a red flag in a very small company but only a mild yellow flag at scale, where you should go with the grain of the industry on titles rather than fight it

At a thousand-plus people you recruit people for whom titles matter, and for some underrepresented groups a title like staff engineer is genuinely meaningful career recognition rather than ego; fighting the industry norm costs too much

15:59 Title sensitivity is a red flag only at small scale and becomes normal at large scale

Sam Corcos · published Dec 11, 2023

Their company eliminated titles beyond functional definitions (e.g., engineering, product) because titles are a form of compensation and, as a radically transparent company, compensation is the only thing they don't share

Titles are effectively a form of compensation, and at a company that shares everything except compensation data, that form of hidden compensation doesn't fit

15:27 Titles are hidden compensation so transparent companies must eliminate them

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Horowitz's two reasons for titles are sound, and any title system — including one that eliminates titles — must still satisfy them.

source Any title system must still satisfy the underlying functions titles serve

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Titles become a motivator that displaces the work itself, and when senior employees derive motivation from titles rather than their work, something is broken.

Dozens of people make 'make Director' or 'make VP' their primary goal and evaluate every action by whether it advances them up the ladder.

source Titles displace intrinsic work motivation and signal organizational brokenness

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Titles lead to entitlement: people use them to assert power and bypass normal decision-making, and title-based rituals undermine the perception of the company as a meritocracy.

Director-only meetings and promotion announcements exclude people whose scope and impact exceed those with titles, reinforcing that a title is required for influence.

source Titles enable entitlement and undermine meritocracy perception

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Conferring the first Director or VP title triggers an unending campaign for titles from everyone else in the company, consuming the CEO's time.

Granting one title signals that titles are fair game, so every accomplishment becomes an occasion to demand a promotion or threaten to leave.

source First senior title triggers unending promotion campaigns

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

Titles cannot be taken back: when a titled leader is outgrown by the role or moves to an individual contributor role, every available option causes confusion, attrition, or title inflation.

Keeping the title confuses the org and triggers demands elsewhere; demoting the title usually makes the person leave; creating a higher title just gives everyone a new target; and ICs who keep manager titles breed resentment.

source Titles are irreversible untitling always backfires

Gokul Rajaram · published May 11, 2017

The advice is most applicable at the earliest founding stage, and a CEO hiring their first people manager should not give a senior title at all.

Once you give out a title, you're headed down a path there is no coming back from.

source Title free approach fits earliest stage though eventually titles may become necessary