The more experienced you get the farther away from code you have to go.

I am a Software Developer with around 10 years of experience in a product based company. I have worked in 5-6 orgs throughout my career and worked with people across the spectrum (Lower tier colleges to Premium IITs, (Ex) FAANG employees to contractors).

I got into this industry because I loved to write code. As i got in and started working on stuff i got to learn even more, I got to know correct/better ways of doing things. I learned being able to handle high scale systems on days of peak load and being able to fix them when there were bugs or operational failures. I loved all of it.

However in the last 3-4 years it started to get all downhill. To be precise, downhill from for enjoyment. The pay improved and i am great full for it. I was promoted to roles which started growing farther and farther from code. Whether I work as a staff engineer or a Team Lead it is no more about writing code, it is about managing people and their bandwidths, negotiating with other teams, dealing with people who do not care about code but want to get results any way possible (they would not show it but it is clear from their decisions).

All this does not make me very happy. I am doing the work expected of me to the best of my effort but I am not enjoying it.

If you have gone through such an experience i would love to hear how you tackled it.

If not, I would still love to hear your views