[pandeiro]

I don't think you can foster a culture of ownership and responsibility where developers are "protected" from decision-making and involvement in other activities. The code isn't written in a vacuum, but as a function of the larger functions of building a business and organization. Furthermore, for essential tasks like evaluating new team members, devs must be involved as they will often be the ones most affected by the eventual decisions.

I'll use a hackneyed sports metaphor b/c my creativity has atrophied over years of nothing but coding: on a basketball team, the shooting guard should definitely be taking a good percentage of jumpers and concentrate on delivering a high percentage of buckets, but they may also be a great passer, a leader in the locker room, mentor for younger players, etc (up to and including weighing in on personnel matters), if they have those capabilities and trust. Probably better than just shooting baskets in a gym their entire career, right?