[weezin]

Programming is a very small part of the battle of being an effective software engineer.

It leaves out:

- communicating

- teaching

- dealing with ambiguity

- navigating politics

- working cross-functionally

Most high level individual contributors at large tech companies don't even code.

[whimsicalism]

i have experienced a lot of people who have convinced themselves they are adding value despite not coding, yes

[weezin]

System design isn't coding and reviewing all designs across 40+ people and leading cross team tech initiatives is a full time job.

[rockemsockem]

What makes you say they don't even code? In my experience coding is indeed drastically reduced, but high level ICs still regularly code.

[weezin]

Looking at their commit history.

[tracker1]

As an addendum to "communicating" is documentation. That said, plenty of those who do document/communicate well can still suck at teaching/training at a higher level.