Engineers Want to Build, Not Maintain: Key Findings From Our 2026 Engineering Reality Report

The joy of engineering has always been in building—writing code, designing systems, creating features that push products forward. Too often, that spark gets buried under maintenance work, tool overload, and the pressure to balance competing priorities.

That tension—between what engineers want to spend their time doing and what they have to spend their time doing—is at the heart of our new 2026 Engineering Reality Report. We surveyed 1,200 engineers and technology leaders to better understand the state of the developer experience today. The results reveal both progress and pain points: advances in automation and AI are giving engineers more time back, but persistent friction like technical debt, fragmented tooling, and burnout continue to weigh teams down.

Throughout the report, you’ll find a detailed look at the tradeoffs shaping modern engineering: where teams are gaining ground, where friction remains, and what engineers themselves say they value most.

The Realities of Modern Engineering

The findings are organized around several core themes that reflect both the opportunities and the challenges facing engineering teams today, including:

• The energy drain: Only a third of engineers strongly agree they spend most of their time on energizing, innovative work.

• Automation and AI’s growing role: Automation and AI have reached critical mass, freeing engineers from repetitive tasks. At the same time that AI is delivering real-time savings, trust and alignment among engineers and their leaders lag.

• Toil and maintenance: Repetitive maintenance and a backlog of technical debt continue to drain productivity and pull focus across engineering organizations.

• Tool sprawl challenges: Nearly nine in ten engineers say switching between tools disrupts their workflow, underscoring how fragmented toolchains are eroding productivity.

• What engineers really value: Consistently, engineers want more time to build, and leaders see this as essential not just for morale, but for innovation and long-term business growth.

Developer Experience Is a Business Issue

Secure software and a great developer experience go hand in hand. When engineers are bogged down by maintenance, technical debt, and fragmented tools, innovation slows and security risks increase. But when teams have trusted, integrated, and secure tools, they can spend more time doing what they love: building.

That’s why we commissioned this report: to shine a light on the realities engineers face today and to help spark a conversation about how to create a better, more secure future for engineering teams everywhere.

You can read the full 2026 Engineering Reality Report here.