As a Technical Manager you don’t get to write code that often. When you do, how do you provide as much value-add as possible? Focus on reference implementations.
A good reference implementation is work multiplied when used by the team at large. When you provide a reference implementation to your team you are supplying them with context that they do not even know about.
You should be uniquely positioned within the organization to understand the following:
- Historical code-debt and context.
- Desired future code-state.
- Understanding of the product timeline.
Because of this knowledge the best value-add you have, given limited time, is to provide reference implementations that take these factors into account, without getting too bogged down in the details.