You need idle time as an engineer. Otherwise if a higher value item appears in the pipeline after a lower value item you'll be working on the lower value thing

You need idle time as an engineer. Otherwise if a higher value item appears in the pipeline after a lower value item you'll be working on the lower value thing first. Idle time is also where you do useful things like checking for updated dependencies, running a linter, generally reading up on the tech you're using, and making the code ready for future edits. Not so idle at all but not really the same as working on a ticket either.