Comment by alexwasserman

This is also the difference between functional title and corporate title that you'll find at larger companies.

Your corporate title is your level on HR's ladder, and it'll be based on whatever HR comes up with - senior, VP, director, etc.

Then more often functional titles are determined by individual departments or groups, and reflect what someone is actually doing. This is architect, PM, lead, manager, whatever. Sometimes these could conflict with corp titles, but often end up being role specific.

It's all dependent on how companies set things up.