Brilliant. This is the first time since I began down the "management" track that I've actually felt someone else understands my reasoning for poking around in the build system, fixing up the regression suite and grabbing hold of the occasional bug and providing a patch.

If nothing else, staying in touch with my inner-developer makes me feel like I'm still doing the thing that made me love this business in the first place: What other industry provides you a blank canvas for solving interesting problems?