[remich]

I don't think that anyone actually believes that writing code is only for junior developers. That seems to be a significant exaggeration at the very least. However, it is definitely true that most organizations of this size are hiring people into technical lead, staff engineer, or principal engineer roles are hiring those people not only for their individual expertise, or ability to apply that expertise themselves, but also for their ability to use that expertise as a force multiplier to make other less experienced people better at the craft.

[codeformonkey]

In my world there are Hard Problems that need to be solved for bu$ine$$ rea$on$, no being a "force multiplier" required (whatever that really means).

[inkyoto]

> I don't think that anyone actually believes that writing code is only for junior developers.

That is, unquestionably, how it ought to be. However, the mainstream – regrettably – has devolved into a well-worn and intellectually stagnant trajectory, wherein senior developers are not merely encouraged but expected to abandon the coding altogether, ascending instead into roles such as engineering managers (no offence – good engineering managers are important, it is the quality that has been diluted across the board), platform overseers (a new term for stage gate keepers), or so-called solution architects (the ones who are imbued with compliance, governance and do not venture out past that).

In this model, neither role is expected – and in some lamentable cases, is explicitly forbidden[0] – to engage directly with code. The result is a sterile detachment from the very systems they are charged with overseeing.

Worse still, the industry actively incentivises ill-considered career leaps – for instance, elevating a developer with limited engineering depth into the position of a solution designer or architect. The outcome is as predictable as it is corrosive: individuals who can neither design nor architect.

The number of organisations in which expert-level coding proficiency remains the norm at senior or very senior levels has dwindled substantially over the past couple of decades or so – job ads explicitly call out the management experience, knowledge of vacuous or limited usefulness architectural frameworks (TOGAF and alike). There do remain rare islands in an ever-expanding ocean of managerial abstraction where architects who write code, not incessantly but when a need be, are still recognised as invaluable. Yet their presence is scarce.

The lamentable state of affairs has led to a piquant situation on the job market. In recent years, headhunters have started complaining about being unable to find an actually highly proficient, experienced, and, most importantly, technical architect. One's loss is another one's gain, or at least an opportunity, of course.

[0] Speaking from firsthand experience of observing a solution architect to have quit their job to run a bakery (yes) due to the head of architecture they were reporting to explicitly demanding the architect quit coding. The architect did quit, albeit in a different way.