Became management
As Quatrix merged with a larger consultancy, Envision, the project teams also were combined. I was tasked with managing the new team and appointed Vice President. This came with a salary bump that I half-joked would have prevented Colleen from leaving.
More importantly, it was basically the end of me writing code for my living. I still got deep into architecture, would deep-dive into diagnosis, and participated in code reviews. But this was the moment that my professional life really shifted to making other people effective, and the productivity I was so proud of became meaningless.