As much as no one wants to admit it, most software engineers (that I know at least) aren't full-time as much as they are on-call. You work when the work comes d

As much as no one wants to admit it, most software engineers (that I know at least) aren't full-time as much as they are on-call. You work when the work comes down the pipeline. Sometimes that means a lot of OT. Sometimes that means you coast for the afternoon. The only important part is that the work gets done as fast as you can manage when it gets to you. Of course, at a good company, managers should be refining backlogs and assigning work when queues run low but most companies I've been at don't really care about work beyond what is assigned for the iteration. As long as the final shipping deadline remains on track, they're not going to put in the extra refining effort to move that deadline up, particularly if they're not on the critical path.