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Less usual suggestion: it sounds like there's plenty going on. Have him mentor junior developers. Ask him to go and survey the office to find out what people's coding pain points are, then see if he can smooth them over.

(This works better if he's older, if he's in his 20s and bored then you should already start looking for his replacement)

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Lots of developers just like developing. At a place I used to work at, one of the best and most senior developers (15-20 years experience) got promoted to project manager for a major project. It took 3 month before he showed up in his bosses office and basically said "demote me back to a developer, or I quit". All he wanted was an office, a hard problem to tackle and to be left alone.

We don't have junior developers :) He doesn't like mentoring as well, just hardcore development :)

If you don't have work that needs his skills (and it sounds like that's what keeps him interested) then do you really need him?

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