Engineer says Claude Code has made his job "soul-sucking"

TheAmazingRace

I should preface my comment with the fact that I’m ultimately neutral on the AI space right now. I’ve gone back and forth on the topic. That said, I think this article underscores the fact that software engineering as a discipline is already unrecognizable from what it was like even a few years ago. You now have to be more into architecture and directing how the AI development tools write out your code. I know a guy who works at Amazon, and the models at OpenAI and Anthropic are so good that he doesn’t even really write code in the classic sense anymore. However, because of his background and experience, he does know what he should expect and if an output matches the quality he wants, versus just blindly trusting the AI tool. In our world, you have to adapt or die. It’s that simple.

isubkhankulov

I feel the only people struggling with this are people who loved programming and syntax. Product-minded software engineers are thriving. Less tedium, easier refactors, manageable scope creep. The “hard” part of engineering has moved up to higher level challenges: evals, sandboxes, etc

Rush2112

I still write code, by hand mostly. Perhaps it’s my sector or something, but I’m always quite surprised when I read things like this.

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812975

vkvkakal

As AI advances, it is natural for development to focus on output and prioritize sprint and PR speed. So rather than insisting that more review time is needed, teams should set success criteria and a set of reference examples to compare the outcomes against. As long as there are clear criteria, there is no need to worry about what AI produces; ambiguous parts can simply be left to human judgment.

WokeUp420

I don't find myself getting more work done... I'm getting more help when I get stuck, but a lot of times AI just creates a bigger mess before it solves a problem.

latentsea

Hard agree. This industry is awful now.

marvstazar

Biggest problem right now for me is what do I tell my children to pursue in college. Up until last year my default answer is a path towards Software Engineering. Now, I am not even sure anymore. I can work on this "soul-sucking" job, but what of the next gen?

kumarvvr

I just started using claude. I am loving it. For context, I have been programming for 25 years now, mainly out of self interest. I find joy in relegating mundane tasks to claude, while working on the broader picture with my trusty pen and paper. I don't give "Build me this end to end" type tasks. I do the program on paper. The architectural aspects. And instruct claude to flesh out lower level stuff.

wallkroft

The root of the problem here isnt ai, after all. Bosses who force people to constantly work overtime for free have always existed. And instead of philosophizing about claude the guy should just look for a job with better conditions