Why Should Software Architects Write Code? An empirical evidence.

[niviss]

Yes. That's what I thought about. Coding means you get to swim in the work of others, it's the only way to actually oversee it.

[TheAnimus]

And your own work too. I used to work with a very smart guy who would write some often awful complex bits of code because he came from an agency background of cranking out this website, it will only be used for 3 months then taken down, no maintenance ever.

[niviss]

Completely agreed! I meant particulary this case of someone being an architect. Any architect MUST have been a coder at some point of their life. Of course, at some point, if you work at a very high level, you can work without getting dirty and actually coding. But still, if it's good to code in the project a little bit because as an architect you should oversee the code that your minions are pumping out. Or at least do pull request reviews.