I think the problem is that career path has multiple directions, as does seniority. Principal developer is just a label slapped on technical people that have ma

I think the problem is that career path has multiple directions, as does seniority. Principal developer is just a label slapped on technical people that have management chops, as described in the article. If “the most successful career path” is defined by financial compensation, it should be no surprise that those techies that also master the broader art of business and management add more value to the organization and are thus compensated accordingly. Would they be able to replace that very senior distributed systems engineer? Maybe, but more likely it’s a different type of value added to the organization.