German to English(US) Equivalent - Job Title

[hudsonbeck]

I figured this would be the best place to ask this since there are so many IT guys here both German and US.

Can someone tell me what the German job title of "Leiter Informatik" is equivalent to in English / US business?
Google translates it as Head of computer science but what would that be in the USA IT field?
Information Technology Lead
Information Technology Supervisor
Information Technology Manager
Information Technology Director
Information Technology Vice President
Chief Technology Officer

Thank you.

[Powerpunsh]

Director fits best i would say If you lead the Informatic path in a company.

Supervisor sounds like someone you can ask so he is just above someone else but doesnt mean he leads anything.
Lead sounds like the lead of a company not mentioned in a head position of a company part.
Manager just doesnt fit in my opinion.
Vice president sounds like a part of the company lead with somekind of procuration.
Chief Technology officer? I would say something like Information Technology Officer but it doesnt fit in my point of view.

Hope i could help but without engagement. :p

[aKe`cj]

... without further context, it is hard to provide an accurate translation.
All of the above are possible, depending on the company.

Sticking closely to the original without knowing what the title actually implies, I would go with "Head of IT" or "Head of Comp. Sci.". But Google already told you that ;)

[Dribble Joy]

Lead/Manager/Supervisor are about right. Director might work if it's a senior/most senior position in an organisation. Vice President? No.

Like aKe'cj said though, some more info/context would be good to get in nailed down. Like how many people are working under this position, how many are above it and how big the organisation is.

[hudsonbeck]

My contact at our company in Switzerland has that as his title so I was just wondering how it translated over to US IT positions. I am still unsure of the reporting structure over there... we are very siloed so its hard to interact and little to no global oversight. We are small.. each company under the parent group is less than 500 employees. Less than 3000 employees total.

I have only interacted with him a couple times and just assumed him to be the IT Manager for that business unit but I know he does handle some global tasks. I just wanted to make sure where we were related to each other...

I appreciate your help...There isn't much this community doesn't know :)

[Dribble Joy]

We are small.. each company under the parent group is less than 500 employees. Less than 3000 employees total.

Is he the top IT guy for the specific company or the whole group?

500 is still a decent sized company. If IT comprises 50-100 of those then you might have 5+ managers and at least one lead.

If he's part of the overall group structure then titles like IT Group Manager or IT Director come into play.

[Divide]

In my line of work, this title would likely translate to Director of Informatics. Informatics is a "new" realm in the IT world, relating to the acquisition, consumption, management, analysis, and evaluation of data. "Big Data" is essentially the reason for this "new" role. So much data, so little value-- until you bring in an "informaticist" who can make sense of your data from 10 directions.

/edit: over use of quotes because in the past this was just a role of a systems analyst/admin/engineer.