But you’re describing exactly what I mentioned above: engineers whose job is not code, per se. Yes, the super-senior engineer who cracks down on bad code by others and sets the right path, etc, is very valuable even if they’re not directly coding themselves. I’m talking about the engineers who are directly responsible for implementing features and fixing bugs. I.e., most software engineers.

Sometimes a great engineer spends a month tracking down a 3-line fix, and that’s just what happens with complex software. But by and large, if an engineer averages only a few LOC a month (and I’ve unfortunately seen this way too many times) then we probably have a problem on our hands.