I work for the software engineering department of a company. With this company, how many hours a day one spends coding depends upon where you are in whatever contracts you are currently working on. At times it is all design, ideas, specification writing and so on, at others it's is almost all day coding, but for the most it is some of each almost every day.
Most of the companies I have worked for/with tend to be similar.
Typical day - yesterday.
Arrived. German translation of the string table for a project has arrived. Need to integrate that, compile it and issue a beta to QA.
Lunch.
Specifications for the IrDA port on the handheld I am working on have arrived. Spend rest of day, train ride home, and half evening reading them.
Actual coding : zero.
Current project. I am one of 12 engineers working on a portable ticket issuing machine for bus and train conductors for a multi million dollar contract in London, (Windows CE based machine - embedded C++ coding). The 3 of us in Denmark are responsible for the hardcopy facilities of this beast. We have been told what printer we probably will be using - but not certain. We have a partial specification of what this printer might do. We have a tentative idea of what the rest of the project team in England are doing. We have a deadline to get the thing out, and next to no R&D finance allocated. Typical project really!
