So you want to be an individual contributor but don't want to be a manager of resources and people (resources aren't people and vice versa). The difference is

So you want to be an individual contributor but don't want to be a manager of resources and people (resources aren't people and vice versa). The difference is between being a "Senior Developer" or some other title that implies the seniority of your contribution compared to a "Head of" or "Senior" in the management hierarchy which is about budgets and P/Ls and GANTT charts and etc. Your company needs to revise it's hierarchies to allow for ICs to be promoted to a similar level as management and have the same power over the area that you are senior (ie design, tools, versioning, SRE work, etc). You decide what the work required is, both for new and ongoing, but it is then the management hierarchy that incorporates that into prioritizing the tasks against customer deliverables, budgets etc.