> As a senior technologist who bills his time as a consultant, I can tell you that I (correctly) get paid the most for days where I write 0 lines of code.
Maybe convince management not to rewrite their core system.
Or listen to the requirements from a new system and propose an existing tool that solves 90% of them. Or explain why the library they were going to use solves a different problem and how they'll regret choosing it.
Or talk to folks and figure out why my proposed new design for a system doesn't cover all the needs of the old one (and eventually that some iteration of it _is_).
Or sketch possible algorithms for a difficult problem on a whiteboard / notepad until I figure out a good-enough solution.
Or talk to stakeholders about their needs and concerns regarding a new system I'm helping design.
Or talk to customers. Or help prepare a pitch or customer demo.
It's very rare that a customer feels it's worth paying me rate for writing code. Though it does happen, and when it does it's usually very interesting code with a very interesting story behind it.
What do you do then?