4 ms·

It is now significantly harder to figure out who understands the systems and is using AI effectively and who doesn't know shit and is just slinging LLM copypast

by ryandvm 4mo ago

It is now significantly harder to figure out who understands the systems and is using AI effectively and who doesn't know shit and is just slinging LLM copypasta around. Before 2025, the underperformers/coasters were at least relatively identifiable by the paucity of their contributions. Now all of the sudden every single engineer is filing PRs, code reviews, technical design documents, and every other artifact under the sun with perfect formatting and at least superficial plausibility. This is mostly due to incredible pressure from the C-level for every engineer to be using as much AI as possible, but it's also just a game theory respopnse because it's in every engineer's best interest to be as prolific as possible. We are absolutely drowning in documentation and code that seems legit and the only recourse is to lean on AI to help process the sheer quantity of it. I have a feeling that the fallout from this phase of the industry is going to be an exotic form of technical debt that is remarkable mostly in its enormity.

blensor 4mo ago
Maybe the solution is to look out for the most silent engineers. Those that output less despite having the ability to create near infinite output.
- AStrangeMorrow 4mo ago
  Not sure how to understand that. You mean as the best engineers? Funnily at my company, the few engineer that did the majority of the work before AI still do the majority of the work now. By majority I mean tackling both more issues and better. However there is a general verboseness and over engineering trend across the board.
  - blensor 4mo ago
    Kind of yes. The person who does not spam the messages. What I noticed for myself is that saying no to something is becoming harder by the day because, why wouldn't you try something if it's so cheap to do. That makes having the strength to say no almost a quality in and of itself. That is true both for external pressure and internal pressure.
    - LtWorf 4mo ago
      Saying "no" as in "this makes no sense" is not the same as "give it to another team". The first can be an engineering take while the second is just politics.
Quothling 4mo ago
I think it depends a little on how and where you work. In the energy industry of Europe where we are extremely regulated AI has been writing some excellent and maintainable code. Of course we can't do any of that CLEAN SOLID DRY stuff, or any abstraction and implicity really, and I imagine that AI would struggle with that. Though you have to wonder if any of those religions ever really worked when you consider that they've still failed to replace most COBOL systems 30 years later. Anyway, that's a different discussion and even Uncle Bob has moved on to functional programming. I've yet to have Opus 4.8 fail me with defensive explict code. Often it'll write code that is better than what I might have done. I imagine it would be a nightmare to go through one of the OOP debug chains with implict error handling, but when every function has a runtime assertion which is basically the contract for how it is supposed to work and exactly what to do if it encounters a corrupt state, then things are just so much easier with AI. I do agree with you on documentation. The amount we have has exploded in the post AI world. Which is a little ironic since the assertion is frankly what you'll need to know and not the 10 pages of prose the AI autogenerated in the shared loop (microsoft's terrible confluence). It is what it is though, and at least it's easier to meet EU compliance rules now, since those are more about the bureaucracy than actual security.
- tonyedgecombe 4mo ago
  >at least it's easier to meet EU compliance rules now Until the bureaucrats start using AI to create a flood of new rules.
budsniffer952 4mo ago
So, in other words, all the "awesome engineers" can't really tell good code from bad unless it's really obvious? Why should we listen to you about AI code being crap, then? Maybe, in the end, you don't really know. Maybe AI is better at it than you?
- horticulturist 4mo ago
  [dead]
- jasonlotito 4mo ago
  No. Your AI tool that summarized the comment did you dirty. The key here was this: > perfect formatting and at least superficial plausibility Basically, a library full of books that have nice covers is going to take time to see that all those books are just filled with ipsum lorem. Before, they coudln't stand up a fake library. The issue comes down to time and effort.
  - skydhash 4mo ago
    > Basically, a library full of books that have nice covers is going to take time to see that all those books are just filled with ipsum lorem Worse if it’s a mixture of good content and ipsum lorem.
strix_varius 4mo ago
I'm sure this is gated by where you work (especially by how technically savvy your manager is), but the most effective contributors at my job tend to be the ones with near-zero (or sub-zero!) net LoC. LLMs are prolific and they love to add shit. Truly capable engineers are able to achieve more business outcomes with less code / fewer moving parts.
- 4lx87 4mo ago
  The most effective contributors at your job remove more code than they add? That doesn't sound effective that sounds like digging ditches to fill them. Every line of code removed is a line that was previously added.
  - fifilura 4mo ago
    I definitely agree with the GP, and the point is that most often someone else (or an LLM) added all those LOC that are removed to make the system sensible.
  - georgemcbay 4mo ago
    > That doesn't sound effective that sounds like digging ditches to fill them. Every line of code removed is a line that was previously added. Because they were added doesn't mean they were needed and even if the same person added and then removed them, it doesn't mean they are digging ditches to fill them. The idea that "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time" also applies to code, and sometimes later you are blessed with more time than you had when implementing something under deadline pressure.
    - 4lx87 4mo ago
      > Because they were added doesn't mean they were needed and even if the same person added and then removed them, it doesn't mean they are digging ditches to fill them. Huh? If LoC weren't needed then adding them was unnecessary and a waste of time. Someone who is known at an organization for removing unnecessary code screams inefficiency to me. It's paying one person to create a mess then another to clean it up.
saltcured 4mo ago
This game-theory phase seems to go hand-in-hand with totally myopic grift/gig/hustle thinking too. There is no product but the confidence act needed to win each moment. Chalk up yet another echo of the 1920s Gilded Age? Between all these economic spasms and the simultaneous tilting towards fascism, I think there is way too much historical rhyming going on right now...
j45 4mo ago
AI usage perhaps will have to be monitored by AI.
giancarlostoro 4mo ago
> It is now significantly harder to figure out who understands the systems and is using AI effectively and who doesn't know shit and is just slinging LLM copypasta around. It's okay, I'm sure the algorithm questions during the interview phase totally weeded out the fakers of systems knowledge right?
roncesvalles 4mo ago
>This is mostly due to incredible pressure from the C-level for every engineer to be using as much AI as possible I think this is an important point. Software engineers always had the right instincts on how to approach AI for coding -- cautiously. Execs got too coked up on LinkedIn puff pieces from nobodies and adver-prophesizing CEOs selling their tokens and chips that they forced something unnatural upon their orgs. Now what we see in the software dev space is incredible levels of malicious compliance ("you want slop, I'll give you slop").
- mplanchard 4mo ago
  I don’t know. I mean, I agree with you overall, but it seems like tons of engineers, especially here on HN, have been more than willing to go all-in on AI for at least the past year, with many dire warnings of “coding is a solved problem,” “if you’re not programming swarms of agents, you’re going to be left behind,” and so on. This has not been my experience with my fellow engineers IRL on average, but I do feel like there is a significant contingent of us who are ready and raring to yield engineering in its entirety to the LLMs.
  - roncesvalles 4mo ago
    A lot of people who write code aren't professional SWEs. A lot of professional SWEs especially on Blind aren't typical SWEs at typical companies. A lot of people who claim to write code are lying. I mean would you take Gary Tan as a valid datapoint for how effective AI is at professional SWE coding? I wouldn't. But these are the kind of people who shill it the most on HN. Also, I suspect that a lot of HN comments that generally state that AI has been useful for their work are actually not referring to programming work, but it's very easy to default interpret it that way. For example, I just recently saw a comment stating how AI can do 90% of their senior-level job, and when I looked into the guy's profile, he was actually a designer, which makes sense. But on first read I assumed the comment was referring to writing code.
    - LtWorf 4mo ago
      There's also a lot of people whose jobs involve sitting in 3 hours meeting to decide where to add another textbox to the website, and that will then create a ticket to create the textbox, have a meeting to estimate the creation of the textbox, have several meetings with the design team about the placement and size of the textbox. Some teams are incredibly inefficient. And in the end the AI is perfectly capable of creating the textbox.
hintymad 4mo ago
Eh, are you using the loop engineering effectively? Remember, Boris can merge more than 200 PRs a week mostly with merely a phone and despite his busy schedule. Anthropic engineers do not write code manually any more, and they don't need to review most of the code either. In all seriousness, though, I'm indeed curious about Anthropic's engineering practice, particular how they can achieve such level of autonomy.
- youknownothing 4mo ago
  Remember Facebook's original motto: Go fast and break things. That's where the speed is coming from. Anthropic's speed of development is about 20% AI and 80% technical debt. We all could be faster if we stopped trying to build things right. Once Anthropic floats, I predict a screeching halt in feature development to fix all the technical debt that they're accumulating.
thisisit 4mo ago
There are also people who think AI is magic. I have often heard - "we want to use AI to automate processes but we don't have full documentation about the processes, we hope AI can help". Despite being told that no one can create outputs from thin air - every AI topic turns into the same discussion. Often the solution to create those document to feed into these AI automations? Use AI. Its like ouroboros. Create docs using AI, then summarize and ingest using AI, explained by AI. Same thing is going to happen with code. Create 1000s of line of code using AI. Then explain it using AI etc.
- 8note 4mo ago
  a process of 1. add tools to be able to do the job 2. work through the process using the agent interactively many times 3. have an llm read back through the session histories to create the full agent definition 4. run it and review works fairly well, and does use llms for most of the steps
golly_ned 4mo ago
I've even seen AI-generated roadmap documents that promise the world, are broadcasted to director+, who sign off without a thought. Words and code are so cheap they're meaningless, while human focus, attention, and understanding are so expensive and overloaded.
protocolture 4mo ago
>I have a feeling that the fallout from this phase of the industry is going to be an exotic form of technical debt that is remarkable mostly in its enormity. This. I feel like it is going to become illegal for older engineers to retire until its all cleaned up. When the debt catches up its going to be civilisation level problem, like asbestos or lead.
- deadbabe 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - protocolture 4mo ago
    >Illegal? Get fucked. They will retire and you can deal with the mess, you have AI. Considering the balance of my job is cleaning up technical debt, that's my own retirement I am worried about. >When you can no longer pay off technical debt, you turn to technical bankruptcy: start over from scratch, greenfield. What that looks like in say, 2030, I can only guess. We saw this happen to a multinational shipping company due to cryptolocker, but I dont know if theres going to be any interest in replicating that. Certainly the AI barking in the ear of the CEO isnt going to recommend it. >I predict what will happen is eventually the number of technical bankruptcies will rise Outside of industries required for national security maybe. > there will be some new movement to only build codebases that fit within human heads, no AI required. I suspect that rational governments are probably going to require No AI clauses in their tenders, but that we will also get hundreds of high profile "Whoops we used AI in this contract when we shouldn't" scandals that come to nothing.
- aakresearch 4mo ago
  > like asbestos or lead Perfect framing! I was leaning towards "AI Chernobyl" analogy in my predictions, but I think "asbestos" or "fossil fuels" captures its nature much better. May I borrow it? I definitely see the harmful consequences of "AI" exceeding both, however with sad realization that it usefulness was absolutely below par with any.
contravariant 4mo ago
You'll recognise the good engineers as the ones that remove code.
- da-x 4mo ago
  I bet code removal is _not_ something that goes into LLM training sets much, unfortunately
tracerbulletx 4mo ago
I've been thinking about the manga Blame! a lot recently, where the entire story takes place in a run away machine built mega structure that is larger than at least the solar system.
Arthurian 4mo ago
The under-performers and coasters just don’t read their code, in my experience thus far it’s been pretty transparent. PRs aren’t a perfect gate, but they’re one of the only ones we have right now, and it’s pretty clear who’s putting in the effort and who isn’t.
- beezlewax 4mo ago
  How is it clear though? It can be really hard to tell.
  - tonyedgecombe 4mo ago
    Surely the harder it is to tell the less of a problem the whole thing is.
sph 4mo ago
"I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage." — Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord These days it is so easy to appear hardworking (by volume of contributions) when you have LLMs. The difference is that the inept now can literally create orders of magnitude more than the careful, experienced engineer.
xnx 4mo ago
> the fallout from this phase of the industry is going to be an exotic form of technical debt This is a common sentiment and possibly motivated by the belief that writing "clean" code was right all along. Even odds that an AI 2 major model versions smarter will be able to eliminate that debt or rewrite from specs derived from the codebase.

by ryandvm 4mo ago

blensor 4mo ago

Maybe the solution is to look out for the most silent engineers. Those that output less despite having the ability to create near infinite output.

AStrangeMorrow 4mo ago
Not sure how to understand that. You mean as the best engineers? Funnily at my company, the few engineer that did the majority of the work before AI still do the majority of the work now. By majority I mean tackling both more issues and better. However there is a general verboseness and over engineering trend across the board.
- blensor 4mo ago
  Kind of yes. The person who does not spam the messages. What I noticed for myself is that saying no to something is becoming harder by the day because, why wouldn't you try something if it's so cheap to do. That makes having the strength to say no almost a quality in and of itself. That is true both for external pressure and internal pressure.
  - LtWorf 4mo ago
    Saying "no" as in "this makes no sense" is not the same as "give it to another team". The first can be an engineering take while the second is just politics.

Quothling 4mo ago

I think it depends a little on how and where you work. In the energy industry of Europe where we are extremely regulated AI has been writing some excellent and maintainable code. Of course we can't do any of that CLEAN SOLID DRY stuff, or any abstraction and implicity really, and I imagine that AI would struggle with that. Though you have to wonder if any of those religions ever really worked when you consider that they've still failed to replace most COBOL systems 30 years later. Anyway, that's a different discussion and even Uncle Bob has moved on to functional programming. I've yet to have Opus 4.8 fail me with defensive explict code. Often it'll write code that is better than what I might have done. I imagine it would be a nightmare to go through one of the OOP debug chains with implict error handling, but when every function has a runtime assertion which is basically the contract for how it is supposed to work and exactly what to do if it encounters a corrupt state, then things are just so much easier with AI. I do agree with you on documentation. The amount we have has exploded in the post AI world. Which is a little ironic since the assertion is frankly what you'll need to know and not the 10 pages of prose the AI autogenerated in the shared loop (microsoft's terrible confluence). It is what it is though, and at least it's easier to meet EU compliance rules now, since those are more about the bureaucracy than actual security.

tonyedgecombe 4mo ago
>at least it's easier to meet EU compliance rules now Until the bureaucrats start using AI to create a flood of new rules.

budsniffer952 4mo ago

So, in other words, all the "awesome engineers" can't really tell good code from bad unless it's really obvious? Why should we listen to you about AI code being crap, then? Maybe, in the end, you don't really know. Maybe AI is better at it than you?

horticulturist 4mo ago
[dead]
jasonlotito 4mo ago
No. Your AI tool that summarized the comment did you dirty. The key here was this: > perfect formatting and at least superficial plausibility Basically, a library full of books that have nice covers is going to take time to see that all those books are just filled with ipsum lorem. Before, they coudln't stand up a fake library. The issue comes down to time and effort.
- skydhash 4mo ago
  > Basically, a library full of books that have nice covers is going to take time to see that all those books are just filled with ipsum lorem Worse if it’s a mixture of good content and ipsum lorem.

strix_varius 4mo ago

I'm sure this is gated by where you work (especially by how technically savvy your manager is), but the most effective contributors at my job tend to be the ones with near-zero (or sub-zero!) net LoC. LLMs are prolific and they love to add shit. Truly capable engineers are able to achieve more business outcomes with less code / fewer moving parts.

4lx87 4mo ago
The most effective contributors at your job remove more code than they add? That doesn't sound effective that sounds like digging ditches to fill them. Every line of code removed is a line that was previously added.
- fifilura 4mo ago
  I definitely agree with the GP, and the point is that most often someone else (or an LLM) added all those LOC that are removed to make the system sensible.
- georgemcbay 4mo ago
  > That doesn't sound effective that sounds like digging ditches to fill them. Every line of code removed is a line that was previously added. Because they were added doesn't mean they were needed and even if the same person added and then removed them, it doesn't mean they are digging ditches to fill them. The idea that "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time" also applies to code, and sometimes later you are blessed with more time than you had when implementing something under deadline pressure.
  - 4lx87 4mo ago
    > Because they were added doesn't mean they were needed and even if the same person added and then removed them, it doesn't mean they are digging ditches to fill them. Huh? If LoC weren't needed then adding them was unnecessary and a waste of time. Someone who is known at an organization for removing unnecessary code screams inefficiency to me. It's paying one person to create a mess then another to clean it up.

saltcured 4mo ago

This game-theory phase seems to go hand-in-hand with totally myopic grift/gig/hustle thinking too. There is no product but the confidence act needed to win each moment. Chalk up yet another echo of the 1920s Gilded Age? Between all these economic spasms and the simultaneous tilting towards fascism, I think there is way too much historical rhyming going on right now...

j45 4mo ago

AI usage perhaps will have to be monitored by AI.

giancarlostoro 4mo ago

> It is now significantly harder to figure out who understands the systems and is using AI effectively and who doesn't know shit and is just slinging LLM copypasta around. It's okay, I'm sure the algorithm questions during the interview phase totally weeded out the fakers of systems knowledge right?

roncesvalles 4mo ago

>This is mostly due to incredible pressure from the C-level for every engineer to be using as much AI as possible I think this is an important point. Software engineers always had the right instincts on how to approach AI for coding -- cautiously. Execs got too coked up on LinkedIn puff pieces from nobodies and adver-prophesizing CEOs selling their tokens and chips that they forced something unnatural upon their orgs. Now what we see in the software dev space is incredible levels of malicious compliance ("you want slop, I'll give you slop").

mplanchard 4mo ago
I don’t know. I mean, I agree with you overall, but it seems like tons of engineers, especially here on HN, have been more than willing to go all-in on AI for at least the past year, with many dire warnings of “coding is a solved problem,” “if you’re not programming swarms of agents, you’re going to be left behind,” and so on. This has not been my experience with my fellow engineers IRL on average, but I do feel like there is a significant contingent of us who are ready and raring to yield engineering in its entirety to the LLMs.
- roncesvalles 4mo ago
  A lot of people who write code aren't professional SWEs. A lot of professional SWEs especially on Blind aren't typical SWEs at typical companies. A lot of people who claim to write code are lying. I mean would you take Gary Tan as a valid datapoint for how effective AI is at professional SWE coding? I wouldn't. But these are the kind of people who shill it the most on HN. Also, I suspect that a lot of HN comments that generally state that AI has been useful for their work are actually not referring to programming work, but it's very easy to default interpret it that way. For example, I just recently saw a comment stating how AI can do 90% of their senior-level job, and when I looked into the guy's profile, he was actually a designer, which makes sense. But on first read I assumed the comment was referring to writing code.
  - LtWorf 4mo ago
    There's also a lot of people whose jobs involve sitting in 3 hours meeting to decide where to add another textbox to the website, and that will then create a ticket to create the textbox, have a meeting to estimate the creation of the textbox, have several meetings with the design team about the placement and size of the textbox. Some teams are incredibly inefficient. And in the end the AI is perfectly capable of creating the textbox.

hintymad 4mo ago

Eh, are you using the loop engineering effectively? Remember, Boris can merge more than 200 PRs a week mostly with merely a phone and despite his busy schedule. Anthropic engineers do not write code manually any more, and they don't need to review most of the code either. In all seriousness, though, I'm indeed curious about Anthropic's engineering practice, particular how they can achieve such level of autonomy.

youknownothing 4mo ago
Remember Facebook's original motto: Go fast and break things. That's where the speed is coming from. Anthropic's speed of development is about 20% AI and 80% technical debt. We all could be faster if we stopped trying to build things right. Once Anthropic floats, I predict a screeching halt in feature development to fix all the technical debt that they're accumulating.

thisisit 4mo ago

There are also people who think AI is magic. I have often heard - "we want to use AI to automate processes but we don't have full documentation about the processes, we hope AI can help". Despite being told that no one can create outputs from thin air - every AI topic turns into the same discussion. Often the solution to create those document to feed into these AI automations? Use AI. Its like ouroboros. Create docs using AI, then summarize and ingest using AI, explained by AI. Same thing is going to happen with code. Create 1000s of line of code using AI. Then explain it using AI etc.

8note 4mo ago
a process of 1. add tools to be able to do the job 2. work through the process using the agent interactively many times 3. have an llm read back through the session histories to create the full agent definition 4. run it and review works fairly well, and does use llms for most of the steps

golly_ned 4mo ago

I've even seen AI-generated roadmap documents that promise the world, are broadcasted to director+, who sign off without a thought. Words and code are so cheap they're meaningless, while human focus, attention, and understanding are so expensive and overloaded.

protocolture 4mo ago

>I have a feeling that the fallout from this phase of the industry is going to be an exotic form of technical debt that is remarkable mostly in its enormity. This. I feel like it is going to become illegal for older engineers to retire until its all cleaned up. When the debt catches up its going to be civilisation level problem, like asbestos or lead.

deadbabe 4mo ago
[flagged]
- protocolture 4mo ago
  >Illegal? Get fucked. They will retire and you can deal with the mess, you have AI. Considering the balance of my job is cleaning up technical debt, that's my own retirement I am worried about. >When you can no longer pay off technical debt, you turn to technical bankruptcy: start over from scratch, greenfield. What that looks like in say, 2030, I can only guess. We saw this happen to a multinational shipping company due to cryptolocker, but I dont know if theres going to be any interest in replicating that. Certainly the AI barking in the ear of the CEO isnt going to recommend it. >I predict what will happen is eventually the number of technical bankruptcies will rise Outside of industries required for national security maybe. > there will be some new movement to only build codebases that fit within human heads, no AI required. I suspect that rational governments are probably going to require No AI clauses in their tenders, but that we will also get hundreds of high profile "Whoops we used AI in this contract when we shouldn't" scandals that come to nothing.
aakresearch 4mo ago
> like asbestos or lead Perfect framing! I was leaning towards "AI Chernobyl" analogy in my predictions, but I think "asbestos" or "fossil fuels" captures its nature much better. May I borrow it? I definitely see the harmful consequences of "AI" exceeding both, however with sad realization that it usefulness was absolutely below par with any.

contravariant 4mo ago

You'll recognise the good engineers as the ones that remove code.

da-x 4mo ago
I bet code removal is _not_ something that goes into LLM training sets much, unfortunately

tracerbulletx 4mo ago

I've been thinking about the manga Blame! a lot recently, where the entire story takes place in a run away machine built mega structure that is larger than at least the solar system.

Arthurian 4mo ago

The under-performers and coasters just don’t read their code, in my experience thus far it’s been pretty transparent. PRs aren’t a perfect gate, but they’re one of the only ones we have right now, and it’s pretty clear who’s putting in the effort and who isn’t.

beezlewax 4mo ago
How is it clear though? It can be really hard to tell.
- tonyedgecombe 4mo ago
  Surely the harder it is to tell the less of a problem the whole thing is.

sph 4mo ago

"I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage." — Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord These days it is so easy to appear hardworking (by volume of contributions) when you have LLMs. The difference is that the inept now can literally create orders of magnitude more than the careful, experienced engineer.

xnx 4mo ago

> the fallout from this phase of the industry is going to be an exotic form of technical debt This is a common sentiment and possibly motivated by the belief that writing "clean" code was right all along. Even odds that an AI 2 major model versions smarter will be able to eliminate that debt or rewrite from specs derived from the codebase.