I genuinely don't want to upset anyone, but as someone with 20+ years of engineering and management experience, I think it might help some people to hear what is most likely really going on here.

This is probably an example of the Peter principle:

The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

There's a huge amount of title inflation going on in the industry. We're now seeing the "Principal Engineer" title being given to people with 3 years of professional experience.

Unfortunately, this is simply not enough time to be very good at all, no matter how much raw talent you have. It takes a decade of experience just to know how to manage yourself effectively, let alone mentor others and lead large projects.