Any senior types out there find that you’re losing your coding “chops”? I’m involved in so many OS/Middleware upgrades, infrastructure upgrades, status meetings that I can’t code to save my life anymore. I can review and guide design, but I struggle to generate new code. I can get a new dev going really quickly though - is this just a natural progression or is it game over for me? I feel like if I had to get another job, I’d be very unsuccessful. They call me a leader, but I think I’m just a slave.

I noticed that too. But it's more of an environment thing. If you're under a lot of pressure to do other things. It is almost impossible to code. I've lost it many times in the past only to gain it back later.

Amen dude.

I was there, I pushed management to choose a role for me or hire more devs because I couldn't keep both up. I was working 16-18 hours a day 6 days a week just to keep up.

Best and worst mistake I ever made.

Since then, I have been cut out of every decision, every meeting, and my expert knowledge on the platform has gone not just ignored but full on rejected.

So now, I have no more power than a Jr dev but I get paid a Sr dev salary. I also sit through the torture of knowing what's wrong with the product without actually being able to fix it unless some idiot manager comes up with the solution.

At this point the schadenfreude has become bittersweet because I want to help these poor fools but at the same time I really enjoy watching all these terrible things happen to a group of assholes who decided that since I won't kill myself for them that I'm no better than a Jr dev.

Now I just sit back and chant my mantra, "fuck em".

@sariel
Same story here, but with a twist.
Stupid dev got hired two weeks after me. He got promoted to TL, and started behaving like a credit stealing asshole. Any change I proposed was bad, until he 'thought' of it 6 month later.
So one year ago he left the company - and I'm getting a senior dev pay, while doing the same song in my head.

Good feedback all, thanks! I tell ya, I think I’m one status meeting away from leaving this career in my rear view mirror.

Been there. All day of meetings and zero real work. It's been real hard to get out of it, in the end I had to agree to slight salary decrease when changing jobs because I was out of touch with latest technology. The longer you wait the worse it's gonna get

@PAKA very, very true