"Also, do you have anything quantitative to back your statement about being out of touch? That hasn't been my experience generally and I work quite hard to ensu

"Also, do you have anything quantitative to back your statement about being out of touch? That hasn't been my experience generally and I work quite hard to ensure I don't lose touch. That's obviously only data on my experiences - but I didn't make the assertion (I genuinely interested though)." How do you know you haven't already lost touch? :p I joke, but the first time I switched into full time "architect" mode I did lose touch without even realising it. I guess the key measure would be: could you jump into a senior developer role on your current project and be as productive as the other senior devs on the team? In my experience most team leads can, but very few managers can. I doubt there is much in the way of hard data either way. I've personally met less than a handful of architects/managers that were clued in over my 15+ year career. It's like looking at code written by a python developer who, a couple of years ago, used to be a c developer. The developer still understands memory management, but it's no longer forced to the front of their minds. And it shows in the code they write. Likewise because as a a manager you aren't forced to deal with the code your brain quickly abstracts it away. Your "atomic operations" when you think about a problem become a lot larger.