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A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

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51–60 of 410 posts

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#51
post #3

Preventing garbage just requires that you take into account the cognitive limits of the agent. For example ... 1) Don't ask for large / complex change. Ask for a plan but ask it to implement the plan in small steps and ask the model to test each step before starting the next. 2) For really complex steps, ask the model to write code to visualize the problem and solution. 3) If the model fails on a given step, ask it t…

At that point, why not just write the code yourself?

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#52
post #34

To all the engineers using claude code: how do you submit your (well, claude’s) to review? Say, you have a big feature/epic to implement. Typically (pre-ai) times you would split it in chunks and submit each chunk as PR to be reviewed. You don’t want to submit dozens of file changes because nobody would review it. Now with llms, one can easily explain the whole feature to the machine and they would output the whole c…

Practically - you can commit it all after you're done and then tell it to tease apart the commit into multiple well documented logical steps.

"Ask the LLM" is a good enough solution to an absurd number of situations. Being open to questioning your approach - or even asking the LLM (with the right context) to question your approach has been valuable in my experience.

But from a more general POV, its something we'll have to spend the next decade figuring out. 'Agile'/scrum & friends is a sort of industry-wide standard approach, and all of that should be rethought - once a bit of the dust settles.

We're so early in the change that I haven't even seen anybody get it wrong, let alone right.

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#53

So we’re supposed to start paying $1k-$1,5k on top of already crazy salaries just to maybe get a productivity boost on trivial to semi trivial issues? I know my boss would not be keen on that at least.

I can't use $20 of credit (gpt-5 thinking via intellij's pro AI subscription) a month right now with plenty of usage so I'm surprised at the $1k figure. Is Claude that much more expensive? (a quick Google suggests yes actually). Having said the above some level of AI spending is the new reality. Your workplace pays for internet right? Probably a really expensive fast corporate grade connection? Well they now also nee…

The fast corporate internet connection is probably 1000$ for 100 developers or more...

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#54
post #3

Preventing garbage just requires that you take into account the cognitive limits of the agent. For example ... 1) Don't ask for large / complex change. Ask for a plan but ask it to implement the plan in small steps and ask the model to test each step before starting the next. 2) For really complex steps, ask the model to write code to visualize the problem and solution. 3) If the model fails on a given step, ask it t…

I feel like I do all of this stuff and still end up with unusable code in most cases, and the cases where I don't I still usually have to hand massage it into something usable. Sometimes it gets it right and it's really cool when it does, but anecdotally for me it doesn't seem to be making me any more efficient.

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#55
post #3

Preventing garbage just requires that you take into account the cognitive limits of the agent. For example ... 1) Don't ask for large / complex change. Ask for a plan but ask it to implement the plan in small steps and ask the model to test each step before starting the next. 2) For really complex steps, ask the model to write code to visualize the problem and solution. 3) If the model fails on a given step, ask it t…

At that point, why not just write the code yourself?

I reached this conclusion pretty quickly. With all the hand holding I can write it faster - and it’s not bragging, almost anyone experienced here could do the same.

Writing the code is the fast and easy part once you know what you want to do. I use AI as a rubber duck to shorten that cycle, then write it myself.

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#56
post #3

Preventing garbage just requires that you take into account the cognitive limits of the agent. For example ... 1) Don't ask for large / complex change. Ask for a plan but ask it to implement the plan in small steps and ask the model to test each step before starting the next. 2) For really complex steps, ask the model to write code to visualize the problem and solution. 3) If the model fails on a given step, ask it t…

At that point, why not just write the code yourself?

Partly it seems to be less taxing for the human delivering the same amount of work. I find I can chat with Claude, etc and work more. Which is a double edged sword obviously when it comes to work/life balance etc. But also I am less mentally exhausted from day job and able to enjoy programming and side projects again.

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#57
Interesting that this guy uses AI for the initial implementation. I do the opposite. I always build the foundation. That way I know how things work fundamentally. Then I ask agents to do boilerplate tasks. They're really good at following suit, but very bad at architecture.

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the jobs market for new grads and early career folks has dried up. A seasoned developer knows that this is how you manage work in general, and just treats the AI like they would a junior developer—and gets good results.

Why bother handing stuff to a junior when an agent will do it faster while asking fewer questions, and even if the first draft code isn't amazing, you can just quality gate with an LLM reviewer that has been instructed to be brutal and do a manual pass when the code gets by the LLM reviewer.

Because juniors learn while LLMs don't and you must explain the same thing over and over forever.

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#59
post #20
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your tips are perfect. Most users will just give a vague tasks like: "write a clone of Steam" or "create a rocket" and then they blame Claude Code. If you want AI to code for you, you have to decompose your problem like a product owner would do. You can get helped by AI as well, but you should have a plan and specifications. Once your plan is ready, you have to decompose the problem into different modules, then make…

> Most users will just give a vague tasks like: "write a clone of Steam" or "create a rocket" and then they blame Claude Code. This seems like half of HN with how much HN hates AI. Those who hate it or say it’s not useful to them seem to be fighting against it and not wanting to learn how to use it. I still haven’t seen good examples of it not working even with obscure languages or proprietary stuff.

If you have to iterate 10 times, that is "not working", since it already wasted way more time than doing it manually to begin with.

Re: A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code

#60
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen people post this same advice and I agree with you that it works but you would think they would absorb this common strategy and integrate it as part of the underlying product at this point...

Claude Code at least now lets you use its best model for planning mode and its cheapest model for coding mode.

The consulting world parallels here are funny
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