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We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

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Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#171

Post by zombot »

bryanhogan wrote: post #162
zie1ony wrote: post #2

Creator here, There is a new kind of task for software engineers these days. A client calls, asks for a "small refactor," and sends you 100k lines of AI-generated spaghetti. And this is great! This is something we can work with. Any experienced engineer can look at a codebase like that and quickly see what to refactor, where a library replaces a few thousand hand-rolled lines, and what smells bad. Removing the first…

Are clients not interested in learning how to build scalable software themselves? Just curious about it, since it's not mentioned in your services.

Those who would wouldn't have mountains of unmaintainable code generated for them.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#172

Post by zombot »

zie1ony wrote: post #2

Creator here, There is a new kind of task for software engineers these days. A client calls, asks for a "small refactor," and sends you 100k lines of AI-generated spaghetti. And this is great! This is something we can work with. Any experienced engineer can look at a codebase like that and quickly see what to refactor, where a library replaces a few thousand hand-rolled lines, and what smells bad. Removing the first…

If unclogging the sewers is a way how the deluge of AI slop can create new work, then more power to you! It's one more element that makes it even harder to write satire that is more absurd than reality.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#174

Post by stackghost »

icase wrote: post #117
thraway3837 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, that question should trouble us more. But honestly we've all asked ourselves that same question and I think our collective response is too nuanced to try to type properly but I'll try. Tools are always made out to seem like the human could be replaced. We've seen that every time some new technology comes out that some people claim will replace humans once and for all! But this does not seem to be true. What…

writing code is the actual fun part of the job though. it’s a shame we automated that instead of the boring system design shit.

>writing code is the actual fun part of the job though.

You mean typing the actual code into the editor is the fun part for you? For me, the fun part has always been "cause computer to do novel things", and actually typing/compiling/debugging the code is just a speed bump on the way to something fun.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#175

Post by zie1ony »

jt2190 wrote: post #8
zie1ony wrote: post #2

Creator here, There is a new kind of task for software engineers these days. A client calls, asks for a "small refactor," and sends you 100k lines of AI-generated spaghetti. And this is great! This is something we can work with. Any experienced engineer can look at a codebase like that and quickly see what to refactor, where a library replaces a few thousand hand-rolled lines, and what smells bad. Removing the first…

I don’t think this is anything new, really: Businesses have been running software that we’d call a “big ball of mud” [1] forever. A common way to market to these firms is to be very easy to find when their software starts to have serious issues. [1] https://www.laputan.org/mud/

Our outcome is also AI-generated (or AI-assisted) code. It is not possible to rewrite 100k loc in a week. Where our stills are is refactoring at scale with help of agents. Basically, software engineer knows better what prompt to put, and when to redo the process or go different path.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#176

Post by ____mr____ »

infinitifall wrote: post #170
socratic_weeb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This industry's complete outsourcing of its core business value on a third party proprietary subscription based tool, Claude, made by an unprofitable company, Anthropic, is very concerning. You are all lunatics, sorry.

I don't follow this line of reasoning. Would it have been meaningfully different if OP had used open-weight models like GLM or DeepSeek? Does it really matter considering we'll have superior models next quarter?

The meaningful difference is that you will not experience EOS if (when) anthropic/openai/etc fails to become profitable and is no longer subsidized by capital funding.

While "vibe-coded" apps do help lots of people who didnt have the time/money/skills to create their projects, you should be aware that currently the compute is being subsidized so that users become reliant/used to the service.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#177

Post by dpark »

supern0va wrote: post #168
dpark wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's de-personalized I had an interesting conversation with a junior engineer who made this observation. She shipped a feature, we gathered data, and based on data we pivoted to a different design. She called out that she wasn’t attached to the code because AI wrote it. Not that she didn’t care about quality or effectiveness of the product, but the personal emotional attachment to the code itself was not there. Pro…

I have to admit that I'm curious why this is the case. I almost wonder if the pseudo-anthropomorphizing of these models is partially what helps here, similar to how I don't take it personally when I give instructions to a junior engineer and they fuck it up (though, I probably should to at least some degree more than I do).

Probably something about the personal time and effort invested in a thing. I would feel much less personally invested if, for example, I created an outline of a story and then paid a ghostwriter to fill it in.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#178

Post by zie1ony »

bryanhogan wrote: post #162
zie1ony wrote: post #2

Creator here, There is a new kind of task for software engineers these days. A client calls, asks for a "small refactor," and sends you 100k lines of AI-generated spaghetti. And this is great! This is something we can work with. Any experienced engineer can look at a codebase like that and quickly see what to refactor, where a library replaces a few thousand hand-rolled lines, and what smells bad. Removing the first…

Are clients not interested in learning how to build scalable software themselves? Just curious about it, since it's not mentioned in your services.

We don't target software developers. Most of the time, they know their craft. We target those who don't have experience and diging into how serwer should be implemented, or best composition of a domain model is not what they would like to sepend hours doing.

The typical client is a 40 years old ex-CTO, that had idea, verified it with Claude Code and got to the point, where the repo is too big. Maybe even rewrote it all from zero, once or twice, but end-up with the same outcome after adding more features.

He can either hire a developer to work on the codebase and refactor it or hire 3party company.

Sometimes the requirement is a security review. And you pay much less if you downsize the repo before handig it over.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#179

Post by zie1ony »

coderenegade wrote: post #98
TacticalCoder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think this is anything new, really: Businesses have been running software that we’d call a “big ball of mud” [1] forever. Well but something really is something totally new. Github went from x commits per year in 2025 (when AI-slop was already being pushed to Github) to the same number of commits in four weeks in 2026. 2025 compared to 2024 was already something like 15x. It's never happened in the history…

And those of us working in the slopfields will probably be employed until the day we die. Love it.

I bet on the loc growing exponentially. I wrote this at the end of 2024: https://codegen.substack.com/p/future-of-software-is-growing...

Hope you like it.

Re: We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code

#180

Post by zie1ony »

zombot wrote: post #171
bryanhogan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are clients not interested in learning how to build scalable software themselves? Just curious about it, since it's not mentioned in your services.

Those who would wouldn't have mountains of unmaintainable code generated for them.

Software engineer profession soon will be like a plumber. You don't build, you just fix things.
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