Not a unicorn as one might think. Most of senior stuff in our consultancy shop ware software architect hat at very beginning of software project, and later on do fair share of coding, mostly critical stuff.

At the company I work for, they strive to hire this role (which is what I do). "Architects who code". Definitely the way to go. As a software consultant, I should also note that I have worked with a number of Architects who don't code, and in every case, they took away more than they added.

This is pretty much the definition of "senior developer" at my company. I didn't know that was abnormal.

Yeah, It's pretty much the definition of what I do every day.