Just to back this up a bit — it definitely makes sense to understand coding as a writing job, which means you are also paid in time for intangible creative process things. Note that there may also be useful engineering deliverables that may feel “immaterial” to certain management styles — it may seem acceptable eg to ship without documentation or unit tests but at some point the lack of attention to nonfunctional things can bite back. Learning to manage work life balance can take time to master for creative professionals — and also developing discipline and craftsmanship takes real effort…

-1 "It seems to me that you get paid for the results you produce, not the work you do". You take this for granted, but most jobs actually are paid per time-unit, not per result. Obviously there wouldn't be a problem if he is working on a per-gig/per-project basis, but to me it seems that he's hired for 40 hours a week.

@DavidMulder: Wage employees get paid by the hour; salaried employees get paid a flat-rate for the week or month. But unless one is working a line-job (where the workflow dictates performance) almost no one is evaluated on what they actually do. If they achieve the desired results, they are assumed to be performing adequately. I mean, that's how people rise through the ranks: they finish what they are supposed to do early, apply themselves to new tasks, and earn the promotions. The OP has the skill to do that, but not (as of now) the drive.

@DavidMulder: Lol... Yeah, because companies are always so clear and transparent with their employees. Until companies start being fair and honest with their employees, well... What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

@TedWrigley Hello whataboutism. As always 'someone else being bad does not justify you being bad'. And honestly, I can't even think of a good example of what it would look like when a company is opaque in a way that 'abuses' your relationship with a company. Closest I can think of is a company not communicating that they don't have the money to pay your salary... which is a decently rare occurrence. Because an employee not putting in his hours is basically the same thing as a company not paying the agreed amount.

I'm not sure whether OP could successfully climb the corporate ladder if they wanted to. OP is very good at software development. They could do the work of multiple full time software developers. But that is not what people higher up actually do. The higher ups mostly do management of other people/ software developers. OPs skills in software development in general do not imply they would be any good at management.

@DavidMulder: That's not whataboutism: I'm not accusing corporations of bad behavior. That's merely capitalism. Corporations look out for their own interests at the expense of others; employees should do the same. And don't be naïve: the bare fact that management salaries, perks, and benefits are considered 'private', while every manager has knowledge or and (limited) control over employee wages is a dead giveaway of the power differential. Unless you're going to invoke the Master/Slave dichotomy (where employees have a different moral code than employers) you have no argument.

@quarague: True, but that's not the point. Climbing the ladder takes both skill and drive. The OP clearly has skill, but someone with a drive to rise in this corporation would be looking to tout those skills and use them as leverage to get higher. It's not a question of how far he could get in this company. Being the best player on the field means there are other teams that want you, which gets you a higher wage while you're at one place, and a better position when you leave.

@TedWrigley Isn't the argument absolutely trivial: Your company is paying you everything you're due. If you're only working half the time you agreed upon, they still end up paying you for the full amount of time. The transparency is required because the company paid for your time, and they might not be aware that you aren't upholding your part of the purchase. (cont.)

It's the same thing as when you go to the shop and you buy a carton of milk and at home you find out it contained water and you would say "ethically the shop is okay, as it's not their responsibility to communicate fairly and transparently". That's utter ****ocks. If you are part of a trade, then ethically you have every responsibility to be transparent about what you're providing. That's true when you're a shop, when you are an employee, or when you're in marriage.

And as to your whataboutism regarding companies not sharing the details of their trades with other people... what moral basis would there be to require them? The important thing is that they are transparent about what they are providing you... and in my experience they are incredibly clear and transparent about that part.

If the contract specifies weekly hours that have to be worked, there's a very obvious ethical problem not working for most of the time.

@DavidMulder: Your mistake is that you believe the company is paying for the employees time. They are not; they are paying for the employee's labor. If I can do the same labor as someone else in half the time, I should be rewarded for that, right? Or do you believe I should be obliged to do double the labor for the same pay, just because I'm obliged to fill the extra hours? As I said, you don't really have an argument here.

@DavidMulder: As to the rest, you don't seem to understand what 'whataboutism' is, and your argument about transparency is so oddly specious I don't quite no what to say to it. All I can really tell is that you're offended by the idea that an employee might 'cheat' a company by finishing his assigned work early and then goofing off, where I see goofing off as a perk one gets for finishing assigned work early. Do you believe employees need to show fealty to their employers above and beyond the work they are contracted to do? That strikes me as absurd.

@knallfrosch: I've never seen a contract worded that way. Contracts spell out wages and duties; they don't dictate attitude. I mean, to make the obvious point: if the OP where to consciously slow down his work so that it took him the full amount of time to complete the assigned task, would that satisfy you? Obviously not. You seem to want the employee to do the maximal amount of work he is capable of for the same amount of money, and the only reason for that you want the company to get more production value (thus more profit) without an increase in payroll output.

@knallfrosch: You've offered a perfect description of capitalist exploitation as outlined by Marx, except you're arguing that it's not only good, but is the employee's moral responsibility to increase company profits without personal gain. I wish you could appreciate the irony as much as I do...

@TedWrigley OP knows that if he was not a remote employee, but was present in a facility where his activities could be viewed, he would not be able to play video games all day without comment or intervention. That means the present state of affairs is based at least in part on deception. If OP had a piece-work contract, that would be fine, but he doesn't seem to. It is likely OP feels guilty because when he says they "can't keep him busy" that is due to the fact that his idleness is not visible.

This is especially true because if the employer were to institute the sort of panopticon surveillance of OP's work machine and work space that would be required for them to know whenever he was idle, a great many people would strenuously object that "the dignity of labor" was being impugned upon and that their staff were being insulted and humiliated.

@tbrookside This is not necessarily true. He can still be unproductive while physically at his workplace. If he has a office to himself then he could still play video games on his phone. If he shares his office with a few other people, he simply would have to angle his monitors a bit and could still browse all kinds of websites.