It is unfortunate that the industry seems to stick to only “coder or manager” framework. There are technical topics and decision spanning across a few teams or

It is unfortunate that the industry seems to stick to only “coder or manager” framework. There are technical topics and decision spanning across a few teams or the whole organization: CI/CD, data pipelines, languages / frameworks, consistency, reusable components, best practices, mentoring, integrations. Can coders who are limited to a single team, without exposure to a big picture, not experienced in business communications, specialists not generalists do it? Can a director of engineering, who is busy with people management, meetings, plannings, work allocations, who can barely keep up with latest technologies, forgot when they coded last time do it properly? Do you want VP to decide what language or platform to use across the organization? It is just my opinion and some experience, but I think there is a proper set of responsibilities in many tech companies for such leadership roles without people management, like tech leads on steroids, they can be called architects, principal engineers. Roughly, 20-30 percent coding, the rest on communications, coordination, designing, mentoring, researching, solving tricky problems, with career progression in the scope: single team -> department, area -> whole organization.