5 ms·

I have certainly noticed my stress skyrocket in this new mode of working. I was used to getting a lot done very quickly, with intense pockets of work followed d

• senfiaj 3mo ago
  Yeah, same thoughts. And this industry is becoming so volatile, I'm not sure what will happen tomorrow. I mean it's highly unlikely that AI will replace developers at least in the next 10 years, but I'm not sure what will "software developer" become. Certain people love to work with details. If AI is taking away this joy, I'll rather retire as early as possible from this volatile industry.
  • bragh 3mo ago
    Maybe we just aren't far enough in the vibe coding side of things and there are still too many people in the industry who still pay attention to details, so no major catastrophes haven't happened yet because of vibe coding. So the people who pay attention to details are still carrying their organizations, but I do wonder how long it is going to be sustainable. When it comes to joy killers because of AI, then it is dismal how plagiarism (going by the definition of "presenting someone else's work without attribution") suddenly became widely accepted. When I see long lists of bullet points with interspersed bold text, I know that it is something the sender did not write or bother reviewing. Absolute cherry on top when in the end of that text you see the typical LLM suggestion that you can ask for more information, which the sender didn't even bother removing.
    • inigyou 3mo ago
      > major catastrophes haven't happened yet because of vibe coding Didn't Azure, AWS and Cloudflare crash a few times in the second half of 2025 because of vibe coding?
      • ThunderSizzle 3mo ago
        Catastrophies would be we vibe coded a nuclear plant or space rocket system and we blew up thousands of people due to a vibe coding error.
        • inigyou 3mo ago
          Bringing most of the western world economy to a standstill isn't one? When I say AWS was down I mean AWS was down.
          • antonvs 3mo ago
            > Bringing most of the western world economy to a standstill That’s a huge exaggeration.
            • inigyou 3mo ago
              True, it was Crowdstrike that did that, and that one wasn't AI.
              • antonvs 3mo ago
                The Crowdstrike outage only affected Windows machines. It probably improved the world economy.
        • leonidasrup 3mo ago
          I can confirm that nuclear power plant software has much higher quality level than normal commercial software and extremly extensive testing. In addition, lot of nuclear safety is checked below the software level on hardware level. Developement of nuclear power plant software is very conservative, it will use LLMs maybe in 10-15 years.
    • memoriyato3 3mo ago
      programmers were always against "software patents" - the idea of copyrighting algorithms and implementations
      • inigyou 3mo ago
        implementations are already copyright
  • stalfie 3mo ago
    10 years is a long time. 10 years ago the Transformer architecture didn't exist. I would call it moderately unlikely at best. At the very least, I would say it's likely that development will require an entirely different skillet 10 years from now.
  • deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  • uxhacker 3mo ago
    It’s not just that. Working with multiple agents and tasks switching will increase cognitive load significantly leading to both poor decision making and increased stress. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7075496/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7075496/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7614709/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7614709/
  • markus_zhang 3mo ago
    I’m trying to get a bit away from the business stakeholders, into more technically required roles. Eventually my goal is to get into a system programming role. The issue with roles close to business is that it doesn’t provide the right soil for good engineering . Your stakeholders have no concept of engineering and wants everything ASAP; Your manager is just a yes man who takes all tickets, and want you to use AI for everything because it’s so easy and quick; Your VP thinks your team is not moving quickly enough; Your VP puts speed before quality literally. The thing is, I believe that some roles and some industries just don’t care about good engineering. If you want to be a good engineer, you have to stay away from them, even if they are high paying, and get yourself into a system programming role, in a company that fails you if you do not have good engineering practices. The only way to be a good engineer is to put yourself in such an environment that you will almost surely fail if you are not a good one. There is a cool-aid and many engineers drink that the most important thing is "business value", and I politely vomit that all out a while ago. The new rule is to become an engineer that they are still willing to pay you even if you spit on their faces. Those roles and companies can die and I don’t give a fuck about those business clowns.
    • senfiaj 3mo ago
      In my company it's a bit more complicated, but I have the spirit of your thoughts. I think business software (such as the ERP-like software I work on) is often an entropy magnet from the complexity point of view. It doesn't strive to be simple and elegant because business / finance world is messy. Whether all the complexity and messiness of the financial world is accidental or justified, this is irrelevant for me because I don't care about their business problems. It will be soul sucking anyway.
      • markus_zhang 3mo ago
        Yeah I agree. And sometimes it is not really the complexity. For example, kernel or compilers are very complicated in certain way, too, but whichever company makes those products probably is way more stringent about the quality comparing to other companies that are happy to move forward with tons of bugs and tech debts.
• embedding-shape 3mo ago
  Not sound harsh but that the people who solved problems with code just because they love coding disappears from problem-solving environments does sounds like a win-win for everyone involved. I've both been in situations where I loved coding the solution more than I want the problem solved, and I got in the way of people who just wanted the solution, and vice-versa where architect-astronauts are more interested in coding then solving things so they get in the way. If these could be better separated, that feels like the right direction, in both cases.
  • throw-the-towel 3mo ago
    Loving code does not necessarily mean being an architecture astronaut.
    • embedding-shape 3mo ago
      The people I'm talking about literally like coding for the sake of coding (many have shared comments here on HN about it in the past too), which I think is the same group who now are loosing their "passion for software engineering" as the LLM takes over the typing/coding part, but still leaves the design/intention to the human. But yes I agree, one does not equal the other, but if one person has one of those characteristics they tend to also have a bit of the other, at least in my experience.
      • hgoel 3mo ago
        Agreed, I see a lot of the type of people you're describing on here.
        • discreteevent 3mo ago
          That type are called "engineers". I used to interview them and I didn't care if they knew anything about the business. Large codebases are the most complex things we have ever worked on and can easily become unmaintainable. I wanted people who really cared about code quality and consistency in order to offset this. I think that it would be even more important to hire people like that now and even though we will need less programmers there were never enough of that type to go around anyway.
• VorpalWay 3mo ago
  One idea to consider might be going into safety critical embedded work (e.g. brake controllers, critical systems for airplanes/trains, medical devices, some industrial systems, ...). AI hasn't penetrated much here yet. It isn't at all clear how or if you would be able to certify the process for example. That might change with time, but for now, all I see AI used for is additional code review and side scripts/tooling that don't need to be safety rated. Of course, that might mean entirely switching language (C, C++ or increasingly but still in minority Rust), learning entirely different skills (control system theory, real time systems, possibly formal verification but usually not), etc.
  • rdbell 3mo ago
    "Switch to a field that involves many people dying if you write a bug" doesn't sound like the less stressful alternative to me.
    • dosisking 3mo ago
      So maybe try the weapons industry? If you write a bug, it will probably miss the target, and people won't die.
      • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3mo ago
        Or it hits a school instead.
    • tempodox 3mo ago
      Especially for developers of server, desktop, or web software. Experience in those fields will be more a hindrance than an advantage if you want to enter embedded development. Embedded is a whole different beast and you’d have to unlearn a lot of bad habits and expectations that your former field instilled in you. No hiring manager will give you the time for that.
  • Eddy_Viscosity2 3mo ago
    > going into safety critical embedded work The move-fast-break-things crowd is going to come after these as well, along with medical and defense software where lives are fully on the line. Sure, there will be failures and needless deaths and bombings of elementary schools, but that's just the price of being on the bandwagon.
• memoriyato3 3mo ago
  it was impossible to write code for 8 hours straight, you naturally had to stop but you can prompt for 8 hours more or less like running versus cycling - you can cover more distance by cycling and it's less intensive (I'm talking casual running/cycling, not racing) agents are a bicycle for the mind
  • reactordev 3mo ago
    The point was they trained to be a runner, not a cyclist.
    • ordersofmag 3mo ago
      But the metaphorical goal is to cover distance not get fit or to make the best use of what you trained for. A trained runner on a bike is faster than a trained runner. At least if the metaphor is about coding as a means to creating usefully functional code as efficiently as possible. Careful coding by hand may eventually be a hobby activity. Personally, while I do get some satisfaction in coding by hand it was always the production of something useful that I found most rewarding. I was never someone who wrote code for a hobby. With LLM's I'm more productive. And I find that very satisfying.
      • skydhash 3mo ago
        > A trained runner on a bike is faster than a trained runner. Not true if they kept going the wrong direction.
  • inigyou 3mo ago
    Why is prompting for 8 hours easier than coding for 8 hours? Is it because the prompts matter less?
    • makapuf 3mo ago
      I find the opposite to be true. I'm much less in control when prompting than programming. So I can be much more in the flow during programming and 8h (well stopping to lunch) can be no issue. I feel bad prompting 2h straight.
• ecocentrik 3mo ago
  That sounds dangerously like your organization has overcommitted to AI, is hemorrhaging money and is squeezing their human engineers to make up the difference.
• MyHonestOpinon 3mo ago
  Just wondering if we are working a lot but perhaps we do not get the same feeling of accomplishment that we used to get since we feel that we are not really doing the work?
• deterministic 3mo ago
  I feel the complete opposite. I am much more relaxed now since I can be way more effective while actually working less.