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No, the equivalent for a software engineer is actually coding, whether on the job or not.

Athletes spend 99% of their time training. Software engineers in very competitive roles might spend 6 hours a day coding if all things go well. I have never seen a coding role where you don't spend substantial time reading docs, doing code reviews, or performing various tasks that comprise of similar practice.

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> No, the equivalent for a software engineer is actually coding, whether on the job or not.

Practice and performance are not the same thing. The mindset is entirely different.

Imagine a world where devs are told by their managers to stop working on a task when it’s clear that the task is not improving their skills.

It doesn’t happen because as a software dev every day is game day.

Instead they will get asked to solve the same kind of problem umpteenth times.

I’ve had to leave top tech companies just to get an opportunity to improve.

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