Nobody non-technical knows what an engineer is really doing while he is sitting at his desk. He might be at his desk 50+ hours a week, earning time-and-a-half o

Nobody non-technical knows what an engineer is really doing while he is sitting at his desk. He might be at his desk 50+ hours a week, earning time-and-a-half on top of his already lucrative salary, but he won't actually be contributing anything that the company actually needs. The senior engineers certainly won't be working more than 40 hours a week. That's for the younger fellas. If you got handed a bunch of bullshit tasks by your senior engineer with or without a generous amount of winking and subtle sarcasm, you'd pick up on it pretty quick. You'd have all sorts of questions about why X needs to be done and would be getting no straight answers. Eventually you'd either get the picture or someone will take you aside and delicately let you in on it. Think that scene in Silicon Valley where Big Head is having his new "role" described to him, only done by the engineers rather than an HR manager. If it looks like you need a lesson in savviness yourself, they won't let you in on it and let you flounder around just like the manager.