If you don't run new builds contantly, that means you aren't doing any actual work if you are on the engineering side.

This is not true. There are higher-end engineering positions that orchestrate everything for the other engineers, amongst other things.

I'll be explicit in regards to my other comment about remote working for others without gamedev experience. Compiling/generating/deploying game-builds is done locally at the studio, but the process is controlled remotely by the game devs.