I have been working at a large bank for a few years. Although some coding is needed, the bulk majority of time is spent on server config changes, releasing code to production, asking other people for approvals, auth roles, and of course tons of meetings with the end user to find out what they need.
I guess when I was a junior engineer, I would spend more time looking at code, though I used to work for small companies. So it is hard for me to judge if the extra time spent coding, was because of me being a junior or because it was a small company.
The kicker, is when we interview devs, most of the interview is just about coding. Very little of it is about the stuff I listed…
Wow that sounds amazing, glad that your company seems to understand what engineers find gratifying!
Though, in my limited experience, this isn’t the case at all with Principals in my company. As a senior eng, I work with a lot of PEs and I’d be lucky to see a code review from them once a month. They always seem to be stuck in design reviews, status updates meetings, and dealing with misc. corporate bs. I look up to my PEs a lot and respect the hell out of them, but I’d never want to be a PE at my company.