> In theory, we aligned the ladders in a manner that Principal sits parallel to Directors in the management track. That seems extremely high in my personal exp

> In theory, we aligned the ladders in a manner that Principal sits parallel to Directors in the management track. That seems extremely high in my personal experience, which is that Principal Engineer corresponds to Manager on the management side. > I'm expected to impact org-wide culture, policy, technology direction, strategy, etc... Also in my experience this sounds more like Technical Director level as that really having input into directing the org. An issue is that as an org grows it tends to create more titles in order to cater for egos and the pecking order among people who may have been there for a long time. So you have Junior Engineer, Engineer, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, Senior Principal/Associate Director, Director, Senior Director... In which case Principal Engineer certainly isn't on same level as Director on management side.