There's an easy way to accomplish this: Commit yourself to 95% reading of code and 5% writing. Through great code reviews, spread your knowledge through the company and make others as good as you. Has the added benefit of making the stack more homogenous. (I still code review 50% of all commits relating to the data model - SQL & API interfaces myself)
Then about the 5% - this is high prio, high visibility fixes where you bring in your extraordinary expertise in some domain. Believe me, that's enough to stay respected. Your time is much better spent at sparring systems architecture & high level design, hiring and building well-oiled teams and discussing the business needs with the rest of the company.
Isn't as fun, Doesn't feel as good, but it helps most the long run. The alternative is a high performance coding monkey that gets a tiny area of the company right - and the rest of IT goes wild and rewrites core APIs in the latest three hype language because "we needed to get rid of technical debt".
The 44 lessons of the OP are distilled gold from years of experience, I rehearse them every year and can recommend them to any aspiring tech lead.
Then about the 5% - this is high prio, high visibility fixes where you bring in your extraordinary expertise in some domain. Believe me, that's enough to stay respected. Your time is much better spent at sparring systems architecture & high level design, hiring and building well-oiled teams and discussing the business needs with the rest of the company.
Isn't as fun, Doesn't feel as good, but it helps most the long run. The alternative is a high performance coding monkey that gets a tiny area of the company right - and the rest of IT goes wild and rewrites core APIs in the latest three hype language because "we needed to get rid of technical debt".
The 44 lessons of the OP are distilled gold from years of experience, I rehearse them every year and can recommend them to any aspiring tech lead.