Coding is a Privilege

No, it's not about "Ooh, I'm so lucky to do the things I love" touchy-feely crap again.

I sometimes find myself happy to be able to code; I really don't do it as often as I wished.
Leading a development team is a pretty goddamn hard work.

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My development team has recently grown and more than doubled in size, and I came to a realization about the very essence of my job: leading a team of two developers is totally not the same as leading five. I used to just think this is a quantitative issue but it is qualitatively different, in what you think about, with whom you work, in the amount of time you have and with the scope of your interests (code related.)
It seems that with two programmers - you are basically just a developer-dude with seniority who gets to decide important stuff about implementation, design and a little about scheduling. When you lead six - your a technical-middle-manager (not Pointy-Haired, I hope) who advises about design, sets standards and attends meetings. That's about it, and GAWD that's plenty.

My former team leader was a veteran programmer who got promoted just before our roads crossed on the same project. It was just a one team development crew and he often took on tasks you'd normally expect a project manager or development manager to take. That team, too, started small and peaked at seven dev's. He and I wrote code together when the thing got started, so I used to think that because of the weird topology of that project - he had no time to lo later code and get technical. Seems I was wrong. At least from what I see about myself now.

I've got more to say about this. Tomorrow, same time?
It's a date, than.