> Do they also stop providing value to Google as a result?

In the context of a software engineer, yes obviously?

> I don’t get paid to write code, and you probably don’t either.

I feel like you're rejecting the premise of the argument. You're talking about becoming a manager, as if that track is somehow relevant to software engineers. I used to be a nurse, I'm not anymore. My skills have definitely atrophied. I would now be a shitty and dangerous nurse. How does that apply to my skills at software engineering? When you stop being a software engineer, it's expected your skills at interacting with code will fall away. But the article you're arguing against isn't written for nurses, and equally isn't written engineering managers.