Does it even make any sense for a good engineer to remain an engineer even in startups?<p>It seems that power (and stock and money) gravitates to executives who don't code. Why not be a CTO who 'doesn't code at work' anymore? Why spend your time working late nights and burning out on fulfilling someone else's dream?<p>(there <i>are</i> good answers to these questions, especially if you think in terms of economics, but it behooves a good engineer to think about them and find her own answer)<p>From the article, after the author stopped coding,<p>"I still was technical. I often wrote code on the weekends. Although the type of work I did is what I call tinkering. I would want to know about a new language or technology, and so I would build little sample applications (typically analogous to a slightly more advanced “Hello, World!”) – just to learn enough to form an opinion. And I read a lot of articles, source code, and documentation on things that struck my fancy."<p>sounds like a plan.<p>I particularly like the "I was still technical" sentence.