As you scale and become more experienced as a manager, it's extremely hard to impossible to maintain technical chops forever. The situation is that either you manage your team of 12 thoughtfully, spending time on team meetings, 1 on 1s, strategy planning and considerations no one else is focusing on, and reading and listening to people... or you're heads down and hands off because you're still coding or building and managing is a distraction.
Long term the latter doesn't scale. The CTO won't know all of what his direct knows as well as the directs of the directs. The CEO won't know all of what the CTO knows, plus the CFO and the CISO. Etc.
An architect building a new office building hasn't personally done what every sub contractor and specialist has done, and yet makes decisions of their directions.
A strong hands on technical manager who can mentor plus lead plus deal with external bureaucracy is as rare as such a person working 80 hour weeks is common.
It's also easier with smaller teams and leaner environments without a zillion meetings.
I'm a previously-technical, and now less so tech manager and that's my experience. It's a trade off in terms of time and investment in skills.
Not to mention the technology changes constantly, leading to more non work homework if you need to stay relevant.
Long term the latter doesn't scale. The CTO won't know all of what his direct knows as well as the directs of the directs. The CEO won't know all of what the CTO knows, plus the CFO and the CISO. Etc.
An architect building a new office building hasn't personally done what every sub contractor and specialist has done, and yet makes decisions of their directions.
A strong hands on technical manager who can mentor plus lead plus deal with external bureaucracy is as rare as such a person working 80 hour weeks is common.
It's also easier with smaller teams and leaner environments without a zillion meetings.
I'm a previously-technical, and now less so tech manager and that's my experience. It's a trade off in terms of time and investment in skills.
Not to mention the technology changes constantly, leading to more non work homework if you need to stay relevant.