At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
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Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#2Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
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Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#4This is interesting:
> “It’s more fun to write code than to read code,” said Simon Willison, an A.I. fan who is a longtime programmer and blogger, channeling the objections of other programmers. “If you’re told you have to do a code review, it’s never a fun part of the job. When you’re working with these tools, it’s most of the job.”
> This shift from writing to reading code can make engineers feel as if they are bystanders in their own jobs. The Amazon engineers said that managers have encouraged them to use A.I. to help write one-page memos proposing a solution to a software problem and that the artificial intelligence can now generate a rough draft from scattered thoughts.
> They also use A.I. to test the software features they build, a tedious job that nonetheless has forced them to think deeply about their coding.
Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#5Welcome to the club.
Have coders really psyopped themselves into thinking their job is somehow that much more special than the rest simply because it paid better due to temporarily market conditions?
I thought that was a joke where everyone was in on it, not that they were serious. I assumed it was clear we're all replaceable cogs in a machine, baring a few exceptions of brilliant and innovation people.
Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#6What even are most programmers at Amazon doing? It seems like all the interesting bits (the MVP of Amazon's major products) was developed long ago. All the low-hanging fruit is gone so the task is now focused on squeezing the few remaining drops of efficiency out of the stone.
Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#7What even are most programmers at Amazon doing? It seems like all the interesting bits (the MVP of Amazon's major products) was developed long ago. All the low-hanging fruit is gone so the task is now focused on squeezing the few remaining drops of efficiency out of the stone.
That’s most major tech companies at this point. The fun was building closer to the mvp of the core product. Once that’s done, it’s just corporate druggery with computers.
Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#8“OK Andrew, we’re looking for someone for this senior developer and they’ve got to be really really great at copying and pasting between Claude and an IDE.
Now we’re going to set up a whiteboard test here and you can demonstrate to us your best copying and pasting.”
“errrr, do I do any actual coding in the job?”
“Well, yes, inasmuch as anyone does these days. It’s mostly copying and pasting though, but hey that’s what coding IS now, right?”
“OK are you ready for your coding test, here it is: what key is COPY? And what key is PASTE?”
Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#9The place known for:
- High degree of warehouse injuries (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/business/economy/amazon-w...)
- Making its delivery drivers piss in bottles (https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/05/24/de...)
- Illegally busting unions (https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/amazon-union-bust...)
- Forcing people back into their offices on five day RTO (https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-5-day-rto-mandate-pol...)
Is now making its white-collar employees' life resemble ...warehouse work? Unthinkable!
Re: At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
#10About 8 or 9 years ago, I talked to a friend who started their first software engineering job. They talked about their job as taking tickets from the JIRA board, completing the change, and putting the tickets back. They were expected to complete 2-3 tickets per day. They didn't enjoy the job, needless to say.
I found this ultra-depressing, and far from what coding was for me - a creative role with great creativity and autonomy. Coding was always solving problems, and never felt like some sort of assembly line. But in a lot of companies, this is how it was constructed, with PMs setting up sprints and points, etc.
Similarly, I spoke to a doctor about how much they loved being able to work remotely at their role - with 2-3 days a week where they just responded to email and saw patients over telehealth. It felt very "ticket" focused and not at all the high status doctor role I imagined.
I suspect that both those roles will be lost to AI. If your role is taking a ticket that says "the box should be green, not red", and nothing more, that's the sort of thing that AI is very capable of.