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…
The agency I work for is contracted by large corporation managing the team from the agency side. Their principal engineers spend more time in meetings and confluence than they do in an IDE. Is that a bad thing? On occasion when they end up too removed from the engineering process, but on the most part it’s helpful having someone do that work, planning, and being the voice for the team at a high level.