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Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

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Re: Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

#21

Post by nottorp »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #15

I'm learning Python on the job, with decades of experience in other languages. Asking an LLM noob Python questions is probably 5-10x faster than googling around and reading docs or tutorials, and almost 100% accurate. I also ask it about git commands I seldom use (I tend to confuse reset and restore, though not revert for some reason). Introductory questions about a widely used language with great documentation and t…

That's what LLMs can help with.

With writing code for legacy code bases that don't have 3000 copies of the same tutorial in the first 3 pages of search results... they help less.

Note that most people claiming > 2x improvement are doing new code from scratch.

Re: Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

#22

Post by damezumari »

mattmanser wrote: post #12
dipeshsukhani wrote: post #5

For me it feels like roughly a 10–20x change, but mostly because I restructured how I work rather than just adding an “AI helper” on top. In the last year I’ve shipped a couple of small OSS tools that I almost certainly would not have finished without AI‑assisted “vibe coding”. Everything I build now flows through AI, but in a slightly different way than just chatting with an LLM. I rarely use standalone ChatGPT/Gemi…

If you were 20x faster you'd have done an entire career's worth of progress this year. Have you? Are you making tons of money? Have you achieved 20x the amount than you have all previous years? Take a step back and realize what you're claiming here.

While the multiplier is less for me ( perhaps 3x or 4x ) I think the assumption that productivity gain leads to directly to more money is bit optimistic. Unless you are self employed, or run your own company, and actually get paid by results, being more efficient is seldom paid much. ( with luck you get promotion every two years or so or pay raise every year )

I have worked for too long in the field, but this year and simply thanks to the LLMs I have actually managed to get 4 usable hobby projects done ( as far as I need them to go anyway - personal tools that I use and publish but do not actively maintain unless I need some new feature ), and I have been quite productive with stack I do not normally use at our startup. Most previous years I have finished 0-1 hobby projects.

The ramp up period for new stack was much less, and while I still write some code myself, most of it at least starts as LLM output which I review and adjust to what I really want. It is bit less intellectually satisfying but a lot more efficient way to work for me. And ultimately for work at least I care more about good enough results.

Re: Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

#23

Post by hhh »

bg_tagas wrote: post #13
CrossVR wrote: post #11

It made me 2x slower, because with Claude's hallucinations I waste more time chasing dead ends than I gain from it in productivity.

[flagged]

What? LLMs invent things (hallucinate) all the time. I used 250m opus 4.5 input tokens this month.

Re: Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

#24

Post by sunrunner »

dipeshsukhani wrote: post #5

For me it feels like roughly a 10–20x change, but mostly because I restructured how I work rather than just adding an “AI helper” on top. In the last year I’ve shipped a couple of small OSS tools that I almost certainly would not have finished without AI‑assisted “vibe coding”. Everything I build now flows through AI, but in a slightly different way than just chatting with an LLM. I rarely use standalone ChatGPT/Gemi…

> On the team side we’ve largely replaced traditional stand‑ups with AI‑mediated updates

Can you expand on this? What was a traditional stand-up before and what does an AI-mediated one look like?

Re: Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

#25

Post by pizza234 »

Very hard to estimate, depending on the domain, I'd say 1.5-2x as much.

When it comes to programming in languages and frameworks I'm familiar with, there is virtually no increase in terms of speed (I may use it for double checks), however, it may still help me discover concepts I didn't know.

When it comes to areas I'm not familiar with:

- most of the time, the increase is substantial, for example when I need a targeted knowledge (e.g. finding few APIs in giant libraries), or when I need to understand an existing solution - in some cases, I waste a lot of time, when the LLM hallucinates a solution that doesn't make sense - in some other cases, I do jobs that otherwise I wouldn't have done at all

I stress two aspects:

1. it's crucial IMO to treat LLMs as a learning tool before a productivity one, that is, to still learn from its output, rather than just call it a day once "it works"

2. days of later fixing can save hours of upfront checking. or the reverse, whatever one prefers :)

Re: Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

#26

Post by userbinator »

memen wrote: post #14

0% productivity improvement. Rephrasing the question: By what percentage has AI changed your input quality? Answer would be around -50%. This is attributed mostly to the vast amount of search results that are AI generated and provide very low density information and miss conveying actual key learning points. This means you have to scan through 100% more text to finally get the information you need to solve the issue.…

0% for me too, as on the few occasions I tried it, it gave completely useless responses that were so far off the mark, if I didn't know better it would've lead me on a completely wrong path.

Re: Ask HN: By what percentage has AI changed your output as a software engineer?

#29

Post by symbogra »

bob1029 wrote: post #16

How would we describe the productivity gains brought on by engaging with tasks we did not have the ability or confidence to prior? The denominator looks like a zero in many places for me.

Yes especially for after hours fun projects where I might have a few hours a week to work on them. Previously I would get so bogged down by boilerplate I had kind of given up on trying. Now with AI tools I can spend more time thinking about the most important problems and send off agents to do the gruntwork.
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