No, no actually capable engineer should be just banging away at code. This is one way to know the level of an engineer.

Less capable engineers think in terms of implementing runtime execution and solving runtime errors.

More capable engineers think in terms of designing the most effective architecture and abstractions for maintainability, performance, and robustness.

I have a project I am working on, It has not compiled in months, but that's ok, since the real work, for me, is in the architectural design.

Yes, getting it to actually run takes some time and effort, but for me that is almost mechanical now.