Regarding the comment you received of "If you can code, then you can only code. Forever.", you need to work on your own branding. If people are getting that impression of you, it's likely because that's the part of your work that you most focused on when originally speaking with them, intentionally or unintentionally. It's up to YOU to set what your public image is.
Case in point: I recently graduated from grad school with a PhD in biomedical engineering. I had known all along that I wasn't a competitive candidate for employment in the BioE industry for a number of years, and I had always dreaded having to find a job as one. However, through a stroke of coincidence, I landed a very short-term job as a data scientist, and I realized that my marketing myself as a "BioE" simply because that was my degree was only hurting myself. I completely changed my resume--still entirely true, but focusing on different skills and directed to a different audience--and applied to different positions. I'm now working for a large bank as a quantitative analyst, and I'm enjoying it tremendously.
If you go in speaking about how you designed and managed a website, people will see you as a code monkey. If you go in talking about how you came up with a business model, raised funding, managed numerous teams of developers and supporting staff, and eventually sold the company for a profit, I imagine that conversations would go a lot differently.
Case in point: I recently graduated from grad school with a PhD in biomedical engineering. I had known all along that I wasn't a competitive candidate for employment in the BioE industry for a number of years, and I had always dreaded having to find a job as one. However, through a stroke of coincidence, I landed a very short-term job as a data scientist, and I realized that my marketing myself as a "BioE" simply because that was my degree was only hurting myself. I completely changed my resume--still entirely true, but focusing on different skills and directed to a different audience--and applied to different positions. I'm now working for a large bank as a quantitative analyst, and I'm enjoying it tremendously.
If you go in speaking about how you designed and managed a website, people will see you as a code monkey. If you go in talking about how you came up with a business model, raised funding, managed numerous teams of developers and supporting staff, and eventually sold the company for a profit, I imagine that conversations would go a lot differently.