In a way I think I can relate to what you are saying about spending one's days coding, its effect on a person socially and the lack of getting to practice talking to people. Even though I'm an introvert (INFJ) I need social interaction at work. I worked my first two years out of school in IT, then worked as a developer for the next two years after that. However I eventually found that coding all day made me feel too socially isolated. So I requested assignment back to the IT department. I've been back in IT now for six years and couldn't be happier.

For me it seems like IT is a good fit for my personality. Every day I help multiple customers and other employees and I get constant feedback and appreciation. It's never boring because it is continual change and variety. It's hectic and stressful at times and requires good organizational and multitasking skills. It also requires patience, diplomacy and tact when mediating interactions between multiple parties who may all be experiencing high stress levels. It fulfills my innate desire to help other people.

Sometimes when people call in they are in a frustrated, agitated or panicked state depending on the severity of the situation. It's not unusual for me to work with our corporate customers' IT staff or management when their entire corporation's accounting and retail system has gone offline and they're losing buckets of money every minute it is down. I've seen situations where the person on the other end of the line is afraid that they are literally on the verge of getting fired and it's becoming more probable with each passing minute. In those situations I think an INFJ's proclivities for counseling can help the caller manage their own emotional state, relieve some of their anxieties, calm them down a bit and help them start to actually work the problem in a rational manner. I never actually mention this to them directly, but this awareness guides my interactions and demeanor with them. My goal in those situation is to stay calm, don't give into the anxiety, subtlety communicate my empathy for what they are experiencing, and present a persona of calm, reassuring confidence that says "Hey, everything is going to be okay if we just work the problem." People aren't stupid and they can tell whether or not you actually care about their problems and what they are going through.

I also still get to write code for various IT-related projects that need integration, automation and/or monitoring. I think as more software companies move to a service-oriented architecture and start to embrace a devops mentality there will be more demand for IT professionals that can write code. So for me, this seems like a good balance, for what it's worth.