dejected_warp_core , 4 days ago

“this is as far as you can go if you don’t want to get involved in management”

Yes. That exactly. This typically comes with a nice perk: Principals are supposed to have the same clout as lower-level managers. Which is to say they usually report to Directors or even the CTO in some organizations.

Another one is “Independent Contributor” which is similar but, as the name would suggest, is very self sufficient and does not work on (or for) a team. They’re basically one-man engineering shops and are expected to perform well everywhere in the company’s tech and talent stacks. As a result, ICs are very rare.