You write that you don't want to manage engineers? But from what you write you cannot manage budgets and deadlines. Managing budget and deadlines is not about

You write that you don't want to manage engineers? But from what you write you cannot manage budgets and deadlines. Managing budget and deadlines is not about setting some "ideal world" and then whipping these lazy engineers to deliver exactly that. Managing budget and deadlines is about - well we delivered X/Y at that date it already was $yyy in terms of money. If it went well maybe you can increase work load, maybe look at things again and stop gold-plating to move further. If it went wrong cut the scope - check what went wrong, lower the risk of not delivering by simplifying tasks. Check if maybe you miss some specialistic knowledge to hire someone to help and account that risk against budget or tell customer that you need something specific that they have to deliver.