This. A principle engineer probably wouldn’t be expected to write that much code in most cases. They’d be leading other senior/staff engineers. They’re spending a lot of time doing research, reviewing design docs, mentoring, and contributing their technical knowledge to high level planning meetings with directors and VPs.

I’d also agree with others that something like a “10x engineer” does exist, it just doesn’t look like the legend might have you believe. They’re not fast typing antisocial weirdos. They just understand the technical and business problems more deeply and have the breadth and depth of knowledge to come up with really good solutions. So in that regard, the value of their output is at least 10x that of their more junior peers.