Scrolling through I didn't see anyone address this question from an organizational perspective, so let me - You are not operating in isolation. Your work has

Scrolling through I didn't see anyone address this question from an organizational perspective, so let me - You are not operating in isolation. Your work has upstream dependencies (well defined requirements, things owned by other people being done first, communication from other parties, etc), that will form blockers on being able to execute on what is important. Likewise, there are downstream bottlenecks; code you write has to be peer reviewed, tested, released, whatever else. This, alone, is like a Kanban process; so long as you are not the bottleneck, you are going to have a lot of downtime, even while some other part (that is the bottleneck) may feel stressed and overworked. But that's not even the only consideration! The 80/20 rule applies to software development, same as everywhere else. Is there more you -could- be doing? Almost certainly! Does it have anywhere near the value to you, the team, or the business, to warrant it getting attention? Assuredly not. Even if you devoted your remaining hours to things you felt you could get some traction on, the return on investment would be super low; likely so low as to not even be noticed. Between the two of those, it is quite possible for people, a majority within a company even, to still provide close to if not their actual maximal value, while not actually being productive 40 hours a week, and with it being neither organizational dysfunction (not to dismiss that as being true some places, but just to highlight it doesn't have to be), nor individual laziness (also not to dismiss that as a possibility, just that it doesn't have to be).