I didn’t read that book but I kind of followed that path. A doctor doesn’t practice health, but heal people, so indeed writing code and making a working software is not the point for me. The obvious example is an independent game developer that wants to make a game for people to have fun.

There is no grand conspiracy of management, it’s just that big companies are usually more akin to factories. There you can’t both be on the assembly line and make strategic and product decisions.

I don’t think freelancing by itself is a solution. Maybe you mean consulting? For me what works is working in small companies and early stage startups. But there are maybe larger companies with alternative organizations that could do it.