Today at Microsoft, not many managers actively write code. They had been doing it "back in the days" but not any more. Many don't even have Visual Studio installed in their primary work machine. I've seen tons working off of Surface with their only actively used apps being browser and Outlook. In fact, as higher up you go you are less likely to find anyone who has written any code in any reasonable period like past 2 years. It is not uncommon for a developer who is starting to feel that it's hard to keep up with coding asking for a management position aggressively. I would wager that more than 70% of the managers are ex-developers who no longer wants to deal with complexity or responsibility of writing code.