So let's think about this in a different way. Rather than classify programmers in buckets, e.g., plumber, non-plumber. Instead, the tasks of vast teams of programmers has grown to include a significantly richer environment. Skills beyond pure programming that we all need to do include connecting vast sets of existing environments together to build the next thing that we are working on. Few environments that we work on don't have networking, acres of existing APIs, already built ecosystems of data.

In today's environment, 'pure programming' is a small fraction of what needs to get done.

As a long-time programmer, the most leverage I have had is when my work connected to some business objective and produced a result. My engineering background, which emphasized a "problem-solving attitude" helps.