Titles matter. 10 years ago, when I was junior, I didn’t go for promo for a while. I accumulated more leadership over time. My perf said I’m splitting myself too thin even though I was just performing at the next level. I got promoted and my next perf appreciated my “thin” split.

I'd be happier in a world titles mattered less but titles change the way others perceive the content and scope of your work. Titles also set the expectations for many people because not everyone can work at the same level on a project.

Inclusivity problems in tech has a lot to do with titles.

You won't be invited to a cross-team strategy meeting if you are officially a junior person regardless of how you perform. It's your leader's job to start including you. If they fail, you're missing opportunities.

Titles matter because it impacts the way people outside of your immediate team/org work with you. If I wanted to work on projects only directly impacting a few engineers, I'd not care about titles. If you need to go beyond, keeping levels representative of your scope matters.

Once you step outside the boundaries of your company, describing the scope and responsibilities of your title starts to matter. It's not unlikely for a principle engineer at a XXX billion dollar company to operate with a larger scope than many SV CTOs.