> I'd even argue it's a prerequisite.
You can know how to do something without being able to consistently do it.
Maintaining velocity is something that I've never been very good at. I always struggled as a junior and mid-level developer with having periods of very high productivity followed by periods of very low. I've been fired for it.
On the other hand, if you measure my output on a monthly or quarter time horizon, I'm very consistently at the top of the class.
My strong suits are around helping others get through tough problems, quickly switching between levels of abstraction (including within a single conversation), understanding how a part of a process fits into the whole, and in guiding/limiting architectural discussions by managing the scope of the problem space under consideration.
This fits very well with my current "staff level" role, but was a real struggle getting to this point.
> This sounds almost Dilbert-esque. It seems like a lot of people here want to be a pointy-haired boss (or pointy-haired tech lead)!
I can see why you'd say that, but I think there's a big difference: PHB was incompetent in addition to having a different role from his team. I've found a sweet spot for myself where I can fill the parts of the "PHB role" well that actually do help the team, but I'm also more than capable of switching contexts and knocking out some tickets when there's a crunch. When I'm especially "in the flow" I work on that sort of stuff and do well. When I'm not, I run interference and keep my team from having to deal with the organizational stuff that doesn't directly help them get their jobs done.
The best functioning teams I've experienced all have one thing in common: they set people up for success by allowing them to do play to their strengths. As a team grows, you can find gaps in those strengths. I see hiring as an opportunity to find someone who is strong in the areas the team is weak. Let the new person come in and do the things they like to do and are good at!
