11–20 of 20 posts
As I've more reliably produced reasonable quality code with automation I've found my joy coming from coding solutions to my own day-to-day problems and less to do with solving the problems I'm employed to solve. It's not a bad thing IMO, the work is still getting done to a high standard but I have to look elsewhere for the satisfaction that used to come from doing my job well.
Mostly I treat the coding agent genie as a code calculator, building a plan, writing code, running tests, reviewing other code with scripts...
Fine to allow the genie to pick an idea from a queue of work, "what is most urgent and important" but not fine to go with whatever the genie thinks should be done - that's a fast track to building something you don't need yet.
I also run a pair-programming session once a week with my team where we direct the genie as a "third" person. It's important to me that we still socialize around the work, even if the genie is involved. Sitting around the pile of code on the table and riffing together is fun. Just because every team member has Claude doesn't mean we stop gathering around the table once a week.
Generally though, the enjoyment comes from the same problem-solving enjoyment I had when writing code before coding agents. It's fun to create things, fun to fix things.
The challenge is managing the addiction. I try to be done with any coding focused task by 2 pm, that let's me wind down and avoid any late into the evening wrap up. I'll spend the final hours of the workday reorganizing plans, reviewing PRs and admin tasks like email, IMs, etc..
Remember even though your enterprise is paying for your tokens, they are extracting 2x, 3x, 10x maybe even 20x the value from you with the heightened productivity from coding agents. If you have equity, let it rip ha but if you don't, take some of that productivity back for yourself.
For sure! I offload most work, except the "idea", rarely any domain-specific logic, and rarely any core design / architecture. Mostly I treat the coding agent genie as a code calculator, building a plan, writing code, running tests, reviewing other code with scripts... Fine to allow the genie to pick an idea from a queue of work, "what is most urgent and important" but not fine to go with whatever the genie thinks sh…
Truer words hath not been spoken.
We tried a few agentic coding tools at work, but they didn't really help.
Along came a project that required us to build a custom harness. One day we added some very basic coding tools to the harness at a whim, and it just immediately (and surprisingly) blew away everything we'd tried.
Now we do most coding through that, and it's a clear productivity boost (2x?). It still requires hand holding and review, and some amount of manual fixing.
But being able to build things much faster is a lot of fun.
Does a burger flipper enjoy flipping burgers all day? - Not unless you're a robot. But Making a Gourmet burger without time pressure? - yes No it is not enjoyable if you have enjoyed coding by hand earlier and like your craft. Maybe for some grunt work or work that you could never do it is great. I've given up trying to enjoy at professional work.