I have a former coworker in their early 20s who left a startup as Senior (they were 1 year out from graduating) to become a "Director" at another startup. Their first job was implementing the control law for the robot's wheels. In this case (and perhaps many others), "Director" just meant "Only person we have".
It can also mean that on the way down. At a private unix software company in 1994, the rise of Linux destroying our business led to firing nearly everyone in support except the cheapest person (me). As I was the only person left in tech support, I became Director of Tech Support by default.
I actually told a startup o joined a few years back that was 5 people that I wanted a more junior title. Because cod it didn’t make it off the ground I didn’t want folks rejecting me as overqualified for roles I was well suited for and under-skilled for ones say my title
Turned out the company didn’t make it and the title in my resume I one I made up anyway.
Can confirm, I myself was a one person support desk (for a restaurant chain) and just never officially had a title. The internal moniker of "the IT guru" was fine for an email signature, but certainly not for a resume. (I've since made other retroactive edits to that, both for something more sensible and to better represent years of scope creep.)
