Somewhere in the last year, a bunch of us who hadn’t shipped real code in years quietly started shipping again. Not reviewing it. Not architecting it in a doc and handing it off. Actually building it. And loving it.
I lead software for a living. That means my days are meetings, roadmaps, hiring, unblocking people, and saying “no” a lot. The last time “writing code” was my actual job was a long time ago. I never stopped being able to code — I stopped having the time to code. At least in my day job. There’s a difference, and every engineering leader reading this feels it in their bones.
I’m in the group being described here and the rustiness is real, but it isn’t the part that decides whether the code is any good. What I lost in the years of meetings was the current detail, which library does what this year and where the sharp edges are. What I didn’t lose was knowing what to ask for and being able to tell when an answer is wrong, which is what you’re doing most of when something else is typing. I’d be more worried about a leader who hasn’t reviewed a diff in five years than one who hasn’t written one.