[need_new_acct]

Why can’t you now? I did the whole management thing for a few years and have gone “back” to being a really strong IC. This frees my time to work on architecture, solving difficult problems on the projects, and coding.

I do not even really see it as going “back”, just moving forward in a different direction.

My managers seem to love this so far because they can focus more on the people aspect you describe, while also having someone on the team who can step into many aspects when they want to go for vacation.