Comment by Illniyar
5 hours ago
Are you saying principal engineers and tech minded PMs make lateral moves into director level manager without going through being entry level EMs first?
I've never heard of something like that. Usually the requirement for being director level manager of engineers is to at least have managed people as an EM for several years before.
At my company it’s lateral.
Lead -> EM
Sr. Lead -> Sr. EM
Principal -> Director
Sr. Principal -> Sr. Director
The pay is aligned with the level whether or not you’re a people leader. To your point though, it may be difficult to go from Principal to Director. I see the lateral moves happen more at the Lead/Sr. Lead levels. They might do a Principal to a Sr. Manager as a trial period with the expectation that you’d be Director after a short time if you perform well. I’ve definitely seen directors become principals as well, so it goes both ways.