If a fresh grad (phd or not) reaches that, then this title isn't worth much. No matter if he works insane hours like he mentioned or not. I'd rather say it's a

If a fresh grad (phd or not) reaches that, then this title isn't worth much. No matter if he works insane hours like he mentioned or not. I'd rather say it's a counter-indication. A workplace that incentivises this actually sounds quite toxic. The big thoughts come when you can relax a bit and zoom out. That's what you'd expect from a principal title holder, instead of the willingness to permanent crunch mode.