I've worked with a ton of architecture astronauts, and while a bunch of them are just shit coders, you can definitely create new ones out of otherwise good coders with the wrong environment.
Those seniors that maintain their output are only able to do that as long as they maintain their knowledge of the codebase. As soon as you lose control your output goes from 10x to 0.1x in the blink of an eye. At that point your options are to look like a fucking idiot because your juniors are out-doing you, or to optimise for blowing smoke up the manager's ass. Easiest way to do that is large sweeping rubbish architectural changes that look good on paper.
Some people will take a stand, but most just play the cards they're dealt. Every great engineer I know has had both 0.1x projects and 20-50x projects. Knowing why that's the case is more important for a senior/lead dev than coding ability IMO. Get the best out of others and all that...
Those seniors that maintain their output are only able to do that as long as they maintain their knowledge of the codebase. As soon as you lose control your output goes from 10x to 0.1x in the blink of an eye. At that point your options are to look like a fucking idiot because your juniors are out-doing you, or to optimise for blowing smoke up the manager's ass. Easiest way to do that is large sweeping rubbish architectural changes that look good on paper.
Some people will take a stand, but most just play the cards they're dealt. Every great engineer I know has had both 0.1x projects and 20-50x projects. Knowing why that's the case is more important for a senior/lead dev than coding ability IMO. Get the best out of others and all that...