I'd say there's more merit than I indicated in my post. Based on my discussion with peers elsewhere, I'd wager I'm pretty solidly Principal in your 5 tier list

I'd say there's more merit than I indicated in my post. Based on my discussion with peers elsewhere, I'd wager I'm pretty solidly Principal in your 5 tier list working their way to Architect. That's razor-close to my actual title now. We're also a fairly largish organization, just not Microsoft-sized. I'm also compensated appropriately, so it's not really a situation where my company is trying to save money. I think part of the reason I came here at the low position that I did was that previously I was half of a 2-person engineering organization. The company just happened to bring in revenue in the billions YoY. There is a certain amount of competence involved in building a working infrastructure for such a company with such few human resources.