Originally Posted by Unregistered

That's true. M1 in ST is just at most a highly paid lead engineer, not even considered a team lead. Need M2 and above to be team lead.

Sometimes I wonder, is the existence of M1 only for the sole purpose of arrowing work when they need someone to be in charge of some stuff since the grade is already of junior management.

In other orgs, managers are managers, not just the title slapped onto Principal Engineers even if the title is inflated.