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My friend is a CTO at a non-tech company and he's now dealing with code from non-SWEs trying to self serve with LLMs. But it's like a kid running a lemonade st

My friend is a CTO at a non-tech company and he's now dealing with code from non-SWEs trying to self serve with LLMs. But it's like a kid running a lemonade stand. Total DIY weekend project quality stuff that they are demanding go live. Hardcoded credentials, no concept of dev/qa/prod environments, no logging, no tests, no source control. I'm not really sure teaching basic SWE practices / SDLC / system design to people whose day job is like.. accounting makes sense compared to just accelerating developer productivity.

bonesss 6mo ago
It’s the same dilemma as old: it’s easier to teach a doctor UML than a coder Doctoring. But, critically, that’s about making doctor-facing IT systems not performing their skilled jobs. Bringing code does not help, but a validated user story with flow diagrams, a UI suggestion, and a valid ticket could. That’s the bridge to gap. Were I that CTO I’d explain that code carries liability, SWEs can end up in jail for malfeasance, fines, penalties, and lawsuits are what awaits us for eff-ups. “Coders” get fired if their code doesn’t work. Same speech to the devs, do exactly as much unsolicited Accounting as you wanna get fired for. Talk fences, good neighbours.
- steveBK123 6mo ago
  The ROI on teaching UML to a doctor is pretty low though right? Non-technical people are not writing tickets, they are just slinging slop. Another anecdote of things I've seen - a non technical person setting up some web scraping monstrosity with 200k lines of code. They beat their chest about how they didn't need the IT org. 1 month goes by and of course it breaks as soon as anything on the website changes and now they have a gun to ITs head to "fix it" and take it over. This outcome for a DIY brittle web scraper is obvious to anyone that's ever written code, but shocking to someone who thinks LLMs are magic.
swader999 6mo ago
No, you should have forward deployed engineers sitting and working right beside these traditional non SW roles if you need to fully integrate AI into their mix.
- steveBK123 6mo ago
  Right, unfortunately a lot of orgs are quickly letting loose some combination of non-tech self-serve AI coding and tech org staffing reductions rather than ADDING forward deployed engineers.

bonesss 6mo ago

It’s the same dilemma as old: it’s easier to teach a doctor UML than a coder Doctoring. But, critically, that’s about making doctor-facing IT systems not performing their skilled jobs. Bringing code does not help, but a validated user story with flow diagrams, a UI suggestion, and a valid ticket could. That’s the bridge to gap. Were I that CTO I’d explain that code carries liability, SWEs can end up in jail for malfeasance, fines, penalties, and lawsuits are what awaits us for eff-ups. “Coders” get fired if their code doesn’t work. Same speech to the devs, do exactly as much unsolicited Accounting as you wanna get fired for. Talk fences, good neighbours.

steveBK123 6mo ago
The ROI on teaching UML to a doctor is pretty low though right? Non-technical people are not writing tickets, they are just slinging slop. Another anecdote of things I've seen - a non technical person setting up some web scraping monstrosity with 200k lines of code. They beat their chest about how they didn't need the IT org. 1 month goes by and of course it breaks as soon as anything on the website changes and now they have a gun to ITs head to "fix it" and take it over. This outcome for a DIY brittle web scraper is obvious to anyone that's ever written code, but shocking to someone who thinks LLMs are magic.

swader999 6mo ago

No, you should have forward deployed engineers sitting and working right beside these traditional non SW roles if you need to fully integrate AI into their mix.

steveBK123 6mo ago
Right, unfortunately a lot of orgs are quickly letting loose some combination of non-tech self-serve AI coding and tech org staffing reductions rather than ADDING forward deployed engineers.