Because, as a senior, you usually already know intuitively what a good solution looks like, and you can quickly discard model responses or suggestions that do not align with it.
AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
341–350 of 481 posts
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#342The article says that more juniors + AI was the early narrative, but where does that come from? Everything I’ve read has been the opposite. I thought people from the beginning saw that AI would amplify a senior’s skills and leave less opportunities for juniors.
AI was supposed to replace juniors and then climb up the ladder with each new release, eventually leaving any work only for the creme of the crop. Which would make the current generation of software engineers the last, but who cares - stocks go up.
Now apparently we've switched to pairing poor kids with an agreeable digital moron that reads and types real fast and expecting them to somehow get good at the job. Stocks still go up, so I guess we'll be doing this for a while.
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know, claude did that I'm the type of reviewer that actually reads code and asks probing questions, and I've heard this from junior and senior devs alike. It's maddening how people say this with a straight face and expect to keep their jobs. If people are pushing code they don't understand, they're liability to their team, product, and employer.
"I don't know Claude did that" isn't a bad thing in and of itself... If someone is spending a bunch of time on code that Claude could have done and easily verified it was correct, they are going to move slower and produce less useful things of value than someone who cares about reading every line of code.
If you don't understand you code how you can be sure it's correct? You actually are pushing it into your colleagues who will verify and fix the code later.
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is that different from working with a n00b except that it only took 30sec to get to the next bug rather than a week?
The junior engineer will grow into a senior engineer
Not as fast as models get better.
And not at all for you, because you're unlikely to retain them for long. Which makes this immaterial - AI or human, you're only going to delegate to n00bs.
(This is distinct from the question of which benefits society more, which is a separate discussion.)
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I could have written it but it would have taken me about 3x longer when all is said and done. Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself. Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?
Everyone using that study to prove LLMs are bad hasn't actually read the study.
I don’t think anyone said anything about “good VS bad”, just about actual VS reported productivity impacts.
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#346The best code I've written with an LLM has been where I architect it, I guide the LLM through the scaffolding and initial proofs of different components, and then I guide it through adding features. Along the way it makes mistakes and I guide it through fixing them. Then when it is slow, I profile and guide it through optimizations. So in the end, it's code that I know very, very well. I could have written it but it…
> I could have written it but it would have taken me about 3x longer when all is said and done. Really does not sound like that from your description. It sounds like coaching a noob, which is a lot of work in itself. Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?
> Wasn’t there a study that said that using LLMs makes people feel more productive while they actually are not?
Curious about specifics of this study. Because in general, how one feels is critical to productivity. It's hard to become more productive when the work is less and less rewarding. The infamous "zone" / "flow state" involves, by its very definition, feeling of increasing productivity being continuously reinforced on a minutes-by-minutes level. Etc.
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know, claude did that I'm the type of reviewer that actually reads code and asks probing questions, and I've heard this from junior and senior devs alike. It's maddening how people say this with a straight face and expect to keep their jobs. If people are pushing code they don't understand, they're liability to their team, product, and employer.
"I don't know Claude did that" isn't a bad thing in and of itself... If someone is spending a bunch of time on code that Claude could have done and easily verified it was correct, they are going to move slower and produce less useful things of value than someone who cares about reading every line of code.
You, sir, have "executive" written all over you.
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are some from the last few months: AI coding assistant trial: UK public sector findings report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-coding-assista... - UK government. "GDS ran a trial of AI coding assistants (AICAs) across government from November 2024 to February 2025. [...] Trial participants saved an average of 56 minutes a working day when using AICAs" Human + AI in Accounting: Early Evidence from…
That was a treat to explore. All of those are based on self-assessment surveys or toy problems. The UK report reads: > On average, users reported time savings of 56 minutes per working day [...] It is also possible that survey respondents overestimated time saved due to optimism bias. Yet in conclusion, this self-reported figure is stated as an independently observed fact. When people without ADHD take stimulants the…
> Yet in conclusion, this self-reported figure is stated as an independently observed fact. When people without ADHD take stimulants they also self-report increased productivity, higher accuracy, and faster task completion but all objective measurements are negatively affected.
Interesting analogy, because all those studies with objective measurements are defied by US students year by year, come finals seasons.
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#349The best code I've written with an LLM has been where I architect it, I guide the LLM through the scaffolding and initial proofs of different components, and then I guide it through adding features. Along the way it makes mistakes and I guide it through fixing them. Then when it is slow, I profile and guide it through optimizations. So in the end, it's code that I know very, very well. I could have written it but it…
The best way I’ve come to describe LLMs is as an ambitious, occasionally bewilderingly stupid but always incredibly hard working junior employee.
You have to watch what it’s doing. And you can’t let it take out into territory you don’t understand, because it will fuck up off leash. But it will thanklessly iterate revision after revision in the way one would ordinarily do with a team, but now don’t need to for tasks that would bore them.
Re: AI was supposed to help juniors shine. Why does it mostly make seniors stronger?
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know, claude did that I'm the type of reviewer that actually reads code and asks probing questions, and I've heard this from junior and senior devs alike. It's maddening how people say this with a straight face and expect to keep their jobs. If people are pushing code they don't understand, they're liability to their team, product, and employer.
"I don't know Claude did that" isn't a bad thing in and of itself... If someone is spending a bunch of time on code that Claude could have done and easily verified it was correct, they are going to move slower and produce less useful things of value than someone who cares about reading every line of code.
If you "don't know" then how could you have "easily verified it was correct"?