"Not really, there are several projects and average size of a team is quite small. In my case we were five people working on a quite large project and no one could compensate for my time. I knew I had to get something done in a week time and I will figure out how to do it. If needed, I had be there 24 hours, but otherwise I am my own boss."

Somebody needs to meet with the higher ups at the company during regular working hours. It just wasn't you. It also depends on what your project entails. If it was all internal, you can easily get away with working on code all day without having to discuss it with customers.

The situation with a startup is different.