Many companies have parallel IC tracks. And even though higher level ICs do need to “herd” more you’re still doing a fair amount of technical work (maybe at least until director equivalent).
The director equivalents I know ("distinguished engineeer") still do plenty of individual work if they want to; it's simply expected that they know how to do things in a way that has the same leverage as a director. And yes, that can include temporarily recruiting people to do work outside their team.
