What Engineers Really Spend Their Time On: Insights from Retool’s 2022 Survey

Retool’s 2022 State of Engineering Time survey of 600 software engineers and managers examined how engineers allocate their time, their interests, frustrations, and actual coding time.

The report shows that open‑source code has become integral to daily work: in 2022 the vast majority of engineers run others’ code, build on open‑source libraries, or reuse code from company repositories and online tutorials. Nearly 90 % consider open‑source essential, while less than 1 % deem it unnecessary.

More than 80 % of developers introduce open‑source code into their work at least once a month (via StackOverflow or other means), and almost 50 % do so at least weekly.

Developers also copy internal snippets and their own code: 44 % copy up to 50 lines per week, 33 % copy 50‑100 lines, and 13 % copy 100‑500 lines.

Both junior and senior developers want to spend less time on testing; seniors also wish to reduce time spent on hiring or interviewing. Slow SQL queries and database synchronization are seen as major time‑wasters.

Human obstacles in collaboration—such as disruptive project direction changes, delayed code reviews, or unclear code ownership—are among the biggest daily frustrations. 38 % cite waiting for others (e.g., code reviews, requirements) as a major issue.

57 % say a pull‑request review takes over four hours, while 26 % report it takes more than a day. Over 30 % need half a workday or more to identify code owners and gather context.

The study estimates engineers average only about 10 hours of “deep work” per week; junior engineers have roughly 20 % more deep‑work time than seniors, likely because they face fewer administrative tasks.

Full report: https://retool.com/reports/state-of-engineering-time-2022/