My official title is Programmer but I do not feel it fully represents what I do because a large portion of my time is spent working with QA on testing, acting as a liason with our offshore development team and meeting with business managers to help make decisions about new features.
My understanding has always been that the title "Programmer" is usually applied to someone who simply writes code, not someone who is involved in architecture decisions or managerial issues related to offshore teams.
It is true that I do not have any budgeting duties as my manager does and I do not deal with contracts related to the offshore development. My manager handles both of those duties.
But the title "Programmer" seems like a very narrow label for the broad range of responsibilities that I have. For example, I sometimes help QA staff to figure out how to do their testing. And I give the offshore team detailed instructions about how to implement new features - I review their code and integrate their changes locally.
I don't know if this is typical these days or if I should ask for a title change.
If I should ask for a title change, I would appreciate any recommendations.