I have been a Data Scientist for more than 7 years now. My positions so far have been "Big Data Scientist", "Data Science Architect", "Senior Data Scientist" (in that order).
I do not only have technical responsibility for my own work, but also for other Data Scientists work (but mostly technology-wise). My responsibilities include thinking about future projects, talking to customers if required (e.g. in technical pre-sales), making sure the collaboration with other departments goes smoothly (including giving them guide lines) and helping the senior management developing strategies regarding data science topics. My specialty is in machine learning (both practical, as well as academic-theoretical ML), but I also develop (micro-service) the software architecture for all our analytics projects. I introduced all machine learning to my employer and are the most senior data scientist in the company. I also made sure that the entire machine learning infrastructure would be build.
To reflect all those responsibilities, my title shall be "updated" from "Senior Data Scientist" to... well that is the question. I was asked to what exactly. I thought "Lead Data Scientist" would be the title to go for, but my research also unearthed "Principal Data Scientist", which seems to be much more common than "Lead Data Scientist".
Although I was a consultant in previous jobs, in my current employment I am not in the consultant industry. My employer builds software that is sold/licensed. I know that in the consultant industry we had the "principal" after the "senior", but I read somewhere (but that is a while ago) that outside the consultant industry, the "lead" is more common. But my research this morning suggests that the "Principal ..." is more common everywhere. I am confused.
What is the difference, which one is closest to my work, and - mostly - which has more prestige?
Side-note: My responsibilities will not change, as I already have quite a few, that is why I wrote "reflect". However, my salary will go up by 10-15% (we will see what they decide on) to financially honor my responsibilities and accomplishments. I have read somewhere that a "Principal ..." gets more money while a "Lead ..." is just "nice sound", but I don't know.
Not sure if important, but I work in Germany, while my title is English.