I think it depends on how it is done, and the kind of ICs you have on the team. It can come off as micromanagement, which may work well enough if you have not-so-competent ICs, but will backfire if you have talented ones.
I've found it really helpful to be a support programmer. not someone that takes on big tasks. nothing with a hard deadline. not something that someone else needs to do their work. leftover cleanup. testing. minor refactoring. build.
you need to keep your hand in the game just to understand what's going on with the codebase. but you're not an a-list player here.
> It can come off as micromanagement, which may work well enough if you have not-so-competent ICs, but will backfire if you have talented ones.
Yep agreed - I've seen a couple of managers that were probably fine as developers but struggled (to their extreme detriment) with being pretty average compared to the senior developers that they were managing. Their 'helpful advice' just served to show how superficial their understandings of the systems were.
