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Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

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Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#181

Post by jimbokun »

scubadude wrote: post #44
827a wrote: post #15

Its a nice productivity and capability boost that feels on the same magnitude as, for example, React. The "dream" of it being able to just take tickets and agentically get a PR up for review is possible for ~5% of tickets. That goes up to ~10% if your organization has no standards at all, including even a self-serving standard like "at least make sure the repository remains useful to future AI usage". My organization…

> Stack Overflow has to be actually dead at this point. There's no reason to go there, or even Google, anymore. If, like the meme, you just copied from SO without using your brain then yes AI is comparable. If you appreciate SO for the discussion (peer review) about the answers and contrasting approaches sometimes out of left field, well good luck because AI can't and won't give you that.

The give and take of contrasting views is certainly lost by LLMs, which create the illusion of a consensus answer to any question.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#182

Post by jimbokun »

skydhash wrote: post #155
DanielHB wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it more points me about stuff I don't know that I don't know. For example, I use it quite a lot when setting up new terraform configuration on resources I am not super familiar with, it often points me out to resources and options I didn't know existed. Of course I always look up everything it spits out (it pretty much never outputs something that actually runs anyway and even when it does it doesn't work out…

Maybe I lack a sense of rush, but I usually take the slow lane for these kind of work. Actually reading through the whole documentation and taking notes. Maybe do some experiment. I'm wary of things going wrong and me not being able to give a clear and short explanation on the cause. If something is important for me to do, I may as well do it well (or explain the tradeoffs that makes it a hacky solution instead).

It can be hard to explain to people that slowing down to make sure something is done right, can make the overall project go much faster.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#183

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

hn_throw2025 wrote: post #88
SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #75

Pretty pessimistic frankly. Management at all levels pushing for nearshoring SWE labor, meanwhile we’re training AI as a long term solution to fill the skill gap in the same nearshore labor. We were hired to be smart people and it’s frankly an insult to gaslight us into believing that it’s simply because it makes us more productive. Of course there’s a push for it with the intent to replace us. Why else would it be f…

> Of course there’s a push for it with the intent to replace us. Why else would it be forced down our throats? I still don’t see this, if only for the Managerial instinct for ass-covering. If something really matters and a prod showstopper emerges, can those non-technical supervisory managers be completely, absolutely, 100% sure the AI can fix the code and bring everything back up? If not, the buck would surely stop…

Directors at my company (large mid-tier tech) are being _asked_ to write AI code. Below that level, it’s a mandate and anyone who doesn’t ship regularly using AI will be pipped and fired. Don’t make me explain how it makes sense but that what we’re dealing with.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#184

Post by nerfellicat »

jimbokun wrote: post #181
scubadude wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stack Overflow has to be actually dead at this point. There's no reason to go there, or even Google, anymore. If, like the meme, you just copied from SO without using your brain then yes AI is comparable. If you appreciate SO for the discussion (peer review) about the answers and contrasting approaches sometimes out of left field, well good luck because AI can't and won't give you that.

The give and take of contrasting views is certainly lost by LLMs, which create the illusion of a consensus answer to any question.

Every time I probe LLMs on questions on fields in which I have expertise, it goes the same way.

They give me some sort of American news media "both sides" type of summary. The answer is always a variation of "it's not one thing, it's many" and the many things are all the opinions that exist on the topic as if they were all equivalent.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#185

Post by nicbou »

jimbokun wrote: post #179
nicbou wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I wrote in a root comment, it’s decimating the traffic of informational websites. We will lose a lot of those websites that produced high-effort, simple-conclusion information. Who will bother with in-depth reviews if someone else gets the sale? Who will patiently answer questions if no one asks anymore? I think that a certain kind of craftsmanship will be lost.

AI companies are eating their seed corn.

What a nice analogy!

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#186

Post by ismailrohaga »

to be honest i'm not too concerned even tho AI is doing most of my work. my company still hire software engineer, no sign of stopping, at least for this year.

with AI we can accomplish more, it's arguably easier to be a "10x" engineer. but to some extent with the cost of "quality".

i think AI is here to stay and i'm preparing for it. currently trying to find best way of utilizing AI in my work to be more efficient (i tried claude code back in nov24, to cursor pro, trae pro, now back to claude code). maximizing tokens. challenging myself with token limits but makes the best out of it.

but also to mitigate being "dumb" i tried to enjoy learning some low level programming lang while building something out of it (currently learning to build TUI)

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#187

Post by hungryhobbit »

scubadude wrote: post #44
827a wrote: post #15

Its a nice productivity and capability boost that feels on the same magnitude as, for example, React. The "dream" of it being able to just take tickets and agentically get a PR up for review is possible for ~5% of tickets. That goes up to ~10% if your organization has no standards at all, including even a self-serving standard like "at least make sure the repository remains useful to future AI usage". My organization…

> Stack Overflow has to be actually dead at this point. There's no reason to go there, or even Google, anymore. If, like the meme, you just copied from SO without using your brain then yes AI is comparable. If you appreciate SO for the discussion (peer review) about the answers and contrasting approaches sometimes out of left field, well good luck because AI can't and won't give you that.

Since when does SO have good discussions?

They used to, but in the past few years all I've ever gotten on the site is downvotes and close flags. No one is interested in actually answering questions, let alone discussing them: the site has trained everyone to become pedantic bureaucrats instead.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#188

Post by mavilia »

No longer employed but from my past year's experience I became disillusioned with it. I think it maybe made me 20% faster? That's being generous but it could have been higher if I was really really diligent about when to use it. But like most dopamine rewarding technologies it became really easy to either just get lost in it or go through periods of not caring to use it at all because it kept giving back garbage.

Things change fast and the tech got way better as I moved from CoPilot to Cursor to finally Claude Code. But at the end of the day the amount that I understood the code I was producing versus how much I was writing was not worth it.

People talk a lot about "what you merge to production is still your code" and I agree with that. To that point whether its a shared experience or just how I'm wired I would need to put way more time in to trying to deeply understand the code than the time it took to write a great prompt that Claude could follow correctly.

We already had a script for boilerplate writing and honestly boilerplate is kinda fun to write sometimes if you have a nice keyboard. The annoying boilerplate is the more nitty gritty stuff like error handling in Go. So I guess I still support the AI tab, that's pretty nice.

I felt myself becoming "dumber" and my productivity increase wasn't worth it. Same reason I stay off TikTok and Instagram even though they sometimes have interesting reels that are actually informative.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#189

Post by antisol »

soraminazuki wrote: post #159
revskill wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "experienced" actually are just senior code monkeys if u ask me, it's trivial right ? I don't assume the reason why, but it's just illogical for a junior to get benefits and the seniors don't. The wrong ones here is the "experienced". I know how to use the AI tools for my purpose (that's why i use them), and of course, to make the impossible possible. Even if i failed to do so, it's not the decrease in producti…

The responses in this thread captures the absurdity of the AI hype so well that it's satirical, even. Putting all blame of AI deficiency on "bad prompting," denial of concrete evidence, and the refusal to provide one either is a recurring pattern in these discussions. The repeated angry name-calling towards experienced developers who failed to uphold your beliefs is the cherry on top.

you forgot "ridiculously hyperbolic claims", e.g "to make the impossible possible"

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#190

Post by hn_throw2025 »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #183
hn_throw2025 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course there’s a push for it with the intent to replace us. Why else would it be forced down our throats? I still don’t see this, if only for the Managerial instinct for ass-covering. If something really matters and a prod showstopper emerges, can those non-technical supervisory managers be completely, absolutely, 100% sure the AI can fix the code and bring everything back up? If not, the buck would surely stop…

Directors at my company (large mid-tier tech) are being _asked_ to write AI code. Below that level, it’s a mandate and anyone who doesn’t ship regularly using AI will be pipped and fired. Don’t make me explain how it makes sense but that what we’re dealing with.

The scenario I was responding to is where developers are no longer employed because the managers interface directly with AI. It sounds like your company still has developers around.

If your company removes all developers and lets the managers vibe code instead, I’ll get the popcorn in for the next outage.

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