Varies widely, depending on where you're working, what you're working on, where in the development cycle you're at, what programming-related responsibilities your job includes, what your level of seniority is, etc.<p>Here's a typical day at a Japanese megacorp as a Level 3 Peon ^H^H^H Salaryman:<p><pre><code> 8:55: Get into work, begin checking email.
9:45: Most email to the outsourcing subsidiary is triaged.
10:00: Planning meeting for project X
11:30: It is over. Begin working on bugs assigned in the tracker.
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(Representative example: List of students assigned to a particular class has an off-by-one error resulting in there being one less student actually displayed in reports than the report says it contains.)<p><pre><code> 12:55: Three bugs done, good job. Break for lunch.
1:30: Back from lunch. Planning meeting for project Y
2:30: Meeting over. Meet with trainee for scheduled professional development lesson.
3:00: First uncommitted time on the day. Begin making progress on the quarterly objective.
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(Sample objective: ~20 new features in our proprietary framework. We have a custom tag which we use in our Big Freaking Enterprise Java apps which lets us turn POJO collections into tabular data, but let's have it such that users can click on a particular row in the table and have that highlight the row, through the magic of Prototype.) Nobody will ask me about this for another three weeks so I have to pick the pace, being mindful to tread the line between looking like I'm busy but not being so productive as to make more senior engineers look bad.<p><pre><code> 5:30 PM: Planning meeting.
7:00 PM: Meeting over, quick break for dinner.
7:15 PM: Eating dinner at desk.
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I'm totally cashiered at this point but cannot socially speaking make a habit of going home this early. Accordingly, I sit quietly at my desk and make a show of working diligently. It is mostly for show. Everyone around me knows it is for show, much like them checking that I am diligently working is for show. These are <i>important</i> shows.<p><pre><code> 9:00 PM: Hit the first group of more senior salarymen going home. Yay. Almost done.
9:30 PM: Apologize for my early departure.
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Note that the above is <i>not</i> crunch time in a Japanese megacorp, as you can see by me arriving and departing on the same calendar day.<p>Here's a day in the life of my consulting career:<p><pre><code> 8:00 AM: Inbox triage for my own businesses.
8:30 AM: Leave hotel.
9:00 AM: Arrive at office. Get coffee/cereal. Consume them while reading client-related email.
9:30 AM: Enough email for the moment. Start working on Project Deliverable A.
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Representative example: complete redesign of the front page (low-fidelity mockup) plus 2,000 words of copy plus 10 suggestions for the H1. These will be A/B tested against the existing front page.<p><pre><code> 10:00 AM: Meeting with stakeholders for Deliverable C. Representative example: email content for a free one-month mini course which they'll use to get more leads for the software.
11:00 AM: Back to working on A.
12:30 PM: Lunch, downstairs with team.
1:00 PM: Meeting with stakeholders for Deliverable B.
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Representative example: Implement a first-run experience of the software to handhold users through getting their account set up and running.<p><pre><code> 2:00 PM: Tired of working on A. Investigate JS frameworks for B.
4:00 PM: JS framework chosen. Write down in notes. OK, back to A.
5:30 PM: Prep for tomorrow's meetings, check email.
6:00 PM: Apologize for ducking out early.
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There are still client team members working (and there will be until 7 PM or so in the evening, at least). I have, however, to go to a dinner that I had scheduled for 6:30 PM. (I <i>generally</i> work such hours as are standard and customary for clients. At some clients this means I'm out of the office at 5 PM on the dot, at others it means a bit later. If "standard and customary" means "salaryman hours" at your office then at around 6:30 or so I just leave quietly.)<p>And what do things look like when I'm working on my own business (where, n.b., all of the products involve substantial amounts of code that I wrote)?<p><pre><code> 7:00 AM: Wake up early for meeting. It was canceled.
9:00 AM: Breakfast with wife.
9:30 AM: Catnap due to only having 6 hours of sleep.
12:00 PM: Up again. Business administration (moving money).
2:00 PM: I should really be getting lunch now, but I'm on HN instead.
3:30 PM: Will probably be done with lunch. Start working on essay.
6:00 PM: Probably done with essay, if the mood is right.
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If not, I'd have task-switched to one of the other todos on my list. Of the top ten exactly one involves programming and that is under 100 lines of code.<p><pre><code> 6:30 PM: Come home, play League of Legends a bit.
8:00 PM: Dinner with wife.
9:00 PM: Quick sweep of inbox for 20 minutes or so.</code></pre>