Ask HN: Software Engineer hitting 40: what's next?
The big tech companies (ie. FANG) all have huge demand for principal+ engineers and know how to scope and support them properly.  The size means they have lots of them which reduces the snowflake nature of the role and makes career development, salary support, etc… more standardized.  Since they are large, there can be some variance, but overall they are a good option if you are interested.  I don’t know where in EU you are, but most of FANG has roles in EU and some even do remote as well.<p>Smaller companies tend to want principal engineers in theory, but as you are finding they can often struggle with how to utilize them properly.  Often you see them playing a Chief Architect role or something similar which is more hybrid with PM than pure tech.  So getting PM skills could help set you up for this direction as well.<p>Finally, you have said you did management for a bit before, so you should know if this is an interesting path or not.  This is a very different role, so I would recommend you do this only if you have the passion and desire to do this full time.  Most principal engineers I know have done management for a bit and gained a lot of skills related to it, but ultimately wasn’t what they wanted to do.