I've been "Lead Dev" for 6 years, and had the responsibility of an actual manager without any of the budget/resourcing ability that's necessary to manage well.

I've been "Lead Dev" for 6 years, and had the responsibility of an actual manager without any of the budget/resourcing ability that's necessary to manage well. I've successfully launched lots of products and platforms with teams of 5-7 people, and had a good tenure earlier this year as a CTO with a team of 5. I would have stayed in that position if the founders hadn't closed it down.