At one point in my life, I became a manager that didn't code. Way too many meetings, travel, and non-technical things to do, so no time and most importantly, no headspace left for coding.
Over the course of about two years this drove me to mental issues. I was unhappy, I could not have a technical discussion with people working for me, I felt inadequate and dumb. On a practical level, I was expected to make technical decisions, but couldn't, because all I had was poorly communicated information from people working for me. That is not enough!
I realized two things:
1. It is not possible to do technical management without coding yourself. CTOs that don't code are not good CTOs.
2. I never want to be in a work situation where I am away from coding.
Since then I've been very happy, first co-founding a business where I had a CTO role (and coded), and then solo-founding and running a business where I code all the time.
Over the course of about two years this drove me to mental issues. I was unhappy, I could not have a technical discussion with people working for me, I felt inadequate and dumb. On a practical level, I was expected to make technical decisions, but couldn't, because all I had was poorly communicated information from people working for me. That is not enough!
I realized two things:
1. It is not possible to do technical management without coding yourself. CTOs that don't code are not good CTOs.
2. I never want to be in a work situation where I am away from coding.
Since then I've been very happy, first co-founding a business where I had a CTO role (and coded), and then solo-founding and running a business where I code all the time.