"Billable hours" != "Working hours". A lawyer may work 70 hours/week to produce 40 billable hours/week. That doesn't mean that they aren't working for 70 hours per week. It just means that the "8 for what we will" and "8 for sleep" have been shaved thin and added to the "8 for work" by shady accounting of time.
Yup - I stumbled into consulting in my first job and carried on doing it in my second, timesheets are the main source of misery/annoyance for me. Non-consultant, non-sales roles are hard to find for people who are technically focused but not actual software developers.
