Senior web developer-designer-graphic artist-software engineer-system administrator.

I don't normally write about personal things on this blog, but I wanted to explore this idea I've had floating around for a while. The bottom line: there is just no all-encompassing title for the do-it-all web professional.

Over the past few weeks, I've recalled several times where I've had a hard time defining what my title should be – whether it be web designer, web developer, graphic designer, software engineer, system administrator or some other random definition of my duties. The truth is, I perform some level of work in each of these fields throughout my travels every day, and if you're in the web development industry, you should, too.

In a nutshell, I'm responsible for the design, development, production, release and maintenance of a web-based site or application. While we certainly have individuals who specialize in some of these specific fields, I often find myself doing bits and pieces (some small, and some large) of all of them. Some weeks will go by where I spend a majority of my time on design, front end code (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript), while other times I'll be building and optimizing a hot new server infrastructure from SliceHost.

So why is there no good title that describes what we do and how we do it? Why does using the title 'web developer' make me sound like a high schooler looking for my first job? What title do you think better describes us?

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