Once you start taking responsibilities of a tech lead do you gradually start moving towards being a manager? Has any one continued to be a tech lead and then move towards a principal engineer . I want you know which streams you can digress into once you start being a tech lead.
IMO a tech lead could essentially be the fork in the between principal and SDM depending on the company structure. Most of the team leads at the office I work in are Principal Engineer I
Only become a manager if you love working with other people and love seeing your team get the credit and praise. You will not like being a manager if it is a stepping stone to Principal Engineer
Either one works, it's mostly a personal choice and which way you're more comfortable to achieve results. And what skills you want to grow (tech be manager/coaching).
I want to grow towards a principal engineer but I am afraid I won't be able to showcase strong engineering skills if I spend more time of project management and would eventually digress to be a manager which I am not keen on.