Ask HN: What career path for a hands-on engineering leader?

For more than seven years, I was the CTO of two mildly successful startups. One achieved the status of scale-up, the other I left after bootstrapping it (build the MVP, hire the core engineering team). Both were in the same space, and I needed to work in a different area after a few years. I have always been a solid and polyvalent engineer, capable of working on the entire stack (backend, frontend, mobile, DevOps/infrastructure). As CTO of relatively small startups (<100 employees), I had a good balance between managerial and hands-on.

I was always frustrated with working with limited means, and I wanted to explore what came next for startups further in their growth. I decided to join a unicorn tech startup as VP of Engineering. The role is hands-off, and I spend a lot of time managing the team, building the engineering and product roadmap, and doing some system design. After a few months in that position, I miss being hands-on: designing and implementing solid and scalable systems and technically leading by example; I love enabling and empowering teams, but I feel a bit bored personally.

I have been thinking about my situation and about how I could keep the same salary level (> £175k) whilst adopting a more hands-on position (possibly without managerial responsibilities). The typical answer for someone based in London, UK, is to move to contracting. I have worked as a contractor before, so I am unsure if those salaries are realistic and where to start. On the other hand, with age, it gets harder and harder to be competitive as a software engineer: is the natural path to move to managerial/architect positions?

I would like to hear from people who faced the same dilemma and what path they chose. I would also love to hear from contractors in the UK.

Many thanks for your help.