From my personal experience (dating back to the first .com bubble burst) principal developers are the part of the product. I worked for a startup that ran out of money (all 10+ mil of it) and was actively selling itself to anyone who might be interested. They brought in an interim CEO who was experienced specifically in this sort of wind-downs. They first trimmed all non-techies, then support, then sysadmins and then moved on to the developers. In the end the only people who remained in the company were the founders and two senior devs, me included. For 3 months we just showed up for work at 10, left at 4, collected the paycheck and worked on our own projects. That is, they paid us to be a part of the sales package.
