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Software engineers are spending most of their time on stuff they hate — and almost none on the work they really want to do.
That’s the key finding from Chainguard‘s 2026 Engineering Reality Report, released today, which surveyed 1,200 software engineers and tech leaders across the US and Europe. The numbers are stark: Engineers spend just 16% of their week writing code and building new features, despite 93% saying that’s the most rewarding part of their jobs.
What do they do with the rest of their time? Code maintenance, technical…
