How much engineering do security engineers do?

I've been programming for most of my career. Some months ago I made a lateral move from a non-security-aligned Systems Engineer role into a Security Engineer role. Interviews left me with the impression I'd have ample opportunities to build stuff with my software engineering skills. And the feedback I got after joining was that my programming skills are what convinced the team to hire me. As it turns out, most of what I'm using my programming skills for n