I can relate

Would love to hear how others have solved this

In some sense, you don’t solve it. You are correct to perceive you are at a crossroads. And the hard part is knowing that either choice may foreclose some possibilities on the other path.

There’s still plenty of time to change gears, or move back and forth between the two choices. There are also other paths; see my comment above.

Important part is to not ignore the discomfort. I suggest reading Charity Majors’ blog posts around leadership vs engineering roles.

I’m in early 40s and going thru a minor midlife crisis around this. Feeling that I’d wasted time in my 20s building technical prowess only to see myself still be viewed as mostly fungible.

I think my future is moving towards consulting and building my own products. If people want to fight each other to get a seat at the table, be my guest. I see it as a waste of life. I can already build significant projects on my own, and it’s long overdue for me to reap all of the profit that those efforts generate.

Don't feel bad about the technical prowess part. Just consider you are "done" with growing the tech skills and start stacking other skills on top and you'll do great.

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).

> maybe at least until director equivalent

Hence the issue xD I’m at the top of what my track offers, but it feels silly to stay in the same place for the next 30 years.

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.