Until a couple of years ago, the term I'd heard was "1st engineer" (also a bit ambiguous if there's a technical founder, but presumably they don't have "engineer" in their title) or "pick your own title," and that seemed fine to me, but also not satisfying.

But other than that, yeah, I have the same questions. It's hard because even if you get into YC/other funding, it is impossible to match big companies.