A Microsoft Research study of 484 developers found engineers spend only ~11% of their week writing code, with communication and meetings consuming even more time. Context switching is identified as a major hidden tax on engineering capacity — Gloria Mark's research shows it takes 23+ minutes to regain focus after an interruption. The post argues the constraint on roadmap throughput is attention, not headcount, and recommends four fixes: protecting contiguous focus blocks, auditing and cutting meetings, limiting work in progress, and reserving senior engineers for high-judgment tasks. The piece closes with a pitch for Wawandco's embedded engineering teams.
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Where the Time Actually GoesThe Recovery Cost No One SchedulesWhat This Looks Like in a SaaS CompanyHow to Reclaim CapacityMeasure Flow, Not Just OutputThe Bottom LineReferences695 Impressions