John Carmack's experience of engineering isn't a bunch of meetings, customer-alignment sessions, or anything else though. Apocryphal stories of him measuring ev

John Carmack's experience of engineering isn't a bunch of meetings, customer-alignment sessions, or anything else though. Apocryphal stories of him measuring everytime he was interrupted are the antithesis of that: they imply he wasn't available to staff, wasn't coordinating with anyone - he was in fact, just coding. How many people have jobs where "just coding" is actually adequate to do the job? The early years of game development are perhaps the only time this was relevant, and even then it only applies if you work for yourself and not salary. When 16 hours a day of coding will pop out a game engine a little faster, which gets it to market faster, which gets money into your bank account faster - sure, go nuts. The monetary value of your output is potentially highly disproportionate to the hours input and you the only stakeholder is you. Of course, if you're spending a stupid number of hours a day coding and disregarding leading your art department, or guiding your other developers, or negotiating with your publishers for funding or deadlines...then you're probably not actually doing your job.