Another way to control how much of your time is "hands on"
is how big a company you work for.
Say you decide to become an engineer -
12 years from now you're a fairly senior engineer -
you might be a manager at a big firm and rarely see
much solder and resistors.
On the other hand, at a startup you might be chief
technical officer.
I'm 1/3 of a company, and the entire technical staff.
The other people are nontechnical. That gives me "power" -
I make my own decisions & only occasionally have to
check with others.
On the other hand, finding bad connections in a
breadboard does eventually lose it's charm after
a number of years. One seeks larger challenges.

--
Anniepoo
Need loco motors?
http://www.idiom.com/~anniepoo/depot/motors.html