I've noticed that my time spent coding has dropped significantly from about 6-7 hours a day to just 2-3 hours. Most of my time now goes into reviews, mentoring, and planning sessions. I'm really curious to know if other senior developers are experiencing something similar. Do you still manage to code for 5+ hours a day, or are you also primarily in meetings and discussing architecture?
5 Answers
From my experience, the higher up you go, the less time you spend coding. Bigger companies often have contractors handle most of the coding, while senior devs focus on mentoring and reviews. If deep coding is your goal, contracting might be the way to go!
I still manage to spend about 4-5 hours coding daily, along with mentorship. Our team isn't very meeting-heavy, which helps a lot!
That sounds ideal! Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with meetings and miss those long coding sessions.
It really depends on your role and company. I've found that most of my time is spent in meetings with staff and vendors now, which means I get less hands-on coding time. However, I still need to keep up with what others are working on, especially during architecture reviews or approvals.
Yeah, I feel you on that. Even if I'm not coding, I have to stay sharp on the technical details.
As a principal engineer, coding is only about 20% of my job. There are bursts of heavy coding, but otherwise, it's a lot of meetings. I still expect seniors in my company to be coding most of the time, though.
That's good to hear! I wish more places allowed their seniors more coding time.
It's pretty varied for me. Some weeks I find myself coding nonstop, while others are filled with coordinating teams and attending meetings. It honestly depends on the project priorities at the time.
That's been my experience too! Each project phase seems to change the balance of coding versus meetings.
I'm really considering it! It sounds like a great way to keep my coding skills sharp.