Are you new to this specific company or the software industry in general? This post reads like the latter. People come barging out of school with a pathological

Are you new to this specific company or the software industry in general? This post reads like the latter. People come barging out of school with a pathological focus on "efficiency", which less-charitably stated is just lighting yourself on fire to serve the company dollar. Software engineering has a phenomenal burnout rate. By the time they're 30 almost everyone I know starts thinking about their exit. I honestly don't believe software engineers can consistently put in more than 4 hours of good work a day on corporate code without being ground down in the long term. The people who stick around tend to be those who sit in meetings all day rather than actually writing code. All of this is to say that you should prioritize things people have in short supply (happiness, dignity) over things corporations have in spades (money, time). Don't be that person who starts keeping track of how others use their work hours.