I definitely was myself at some point in solution architect role and I was thinking similar to you. I did climb further since then and I find myself seeking to become way more technical than my role is asking for. And my main justification for that is survival. Around 10 years ago when I switched from engineer to my first architect role for a while I thought that getting further from code would allow me to grow and progress. I’ve noticed even at higher level roles that best jobs out there are for seniority + technical skills. It is probably mine only opinion but I believe among architect I myself met too many impostors. People who take it on themselves to interpret what all those words mean “architect”, “solutions arch”, enterprise arch, domain arch, principal arch, apply some internet articles and togaf etc etc to interpret the roles. Now being in interviews for architects of all seniority levels many times a week I understand that only particular organization knows who they are looking for. And if organization is asking you coding stuff - it must be who they are looking for. We cannot take it against the companies. There’s no universal rule or agreement for how technical certain roles should be. I am looking for tech skills and savviness from even senior principal architects. Definitely from solution arch’s job family. It’s not just me. Job market has spoken. Best roles out there are for people who can translate business requirements into architecture and design and roadmap in the morning and present strategy to VPs in the meeting right after. Market pays astronomically well for very senior people who can most efficiently solve problems and the way to test it is to see how people solve a coding problem. Not a difficult one but something on leetcode easy level for principal level. Facebook test even managers of senior and even director level on some entry coding. It is to test your algorithmic thinking mainly. I’m happy to have a healthy debate and discussion here about it. Struggling with that balance myself because it’s not easy to stay up to date without direct coding responsibilities.