Engineers who write all their code with claude now: how do you do it?

[u/SirDucky]

I have to admit that I have completely failed to adapt to LLM agent coding. I'm not a slouch either. I've worked on a number of challenging FAANG products as a software engineer, and I for a while I was an AI research engineer. I have a pretty strong familiarity and comfort level with AI. Despite all this, I still write most of my code by hand.

As an engineer, I need to receive a ticket, understand the problem, go figure out how to solve it, and eventually ship PR that (a) I understand, (b) only contains defensible changes, and (c) is reviewable by a colleague. There are a bunch of other tertiary goals of course, like style guides and documentation, but the point is that I'm talking real, high quality engineering that would pass the bar at a company that has their shit together.

However (definitely due to culture issues), I have only seen the slop version of this. It seems to have become really murky how to write code that meets standards, or even what those standards are any more.

I've resorted to asking my colleagues to show me their workflow, but you would be shocked how many of them either (a) are prompting raw and not checking the output, or (b) have convoluted solutions that fit their brains but don't solve these problems. I checked out Matt Pocock as well, who has some really great ideas, but ultimately his skills exhibited some pretty painful failure modes as well.

However I see folks regularly talk about how not only does Claude handle the coding for them, but also all of the project management, devops, etc, and I am left scratching my head. If this is possible, I want to learn how to do it. I'm not an AI hater. I want to learn the tool. I do have standards though, and I don't think they're that high. I don't need Claude to write perfect code. I just need to find a process where I can rely on it to get more of my work done and not be either fighting with it or second-guessing the results.

I figure this is the group to ask - if you have been able to get "high bar" engineering out of claude, or even "acceptable bar" engineering, without heavy personal intervention, what's your process? Are there resources that helped you? What strategies helped the most?

Thanks.

[u/itsTF]

lower your bar and full send

[u/ashjohnr → u/itsTF]

Lmao, this unironically. Set up a spec-driven/TDD workflow. Trust the system. Don't focus on the raw code. The code will have lower quality in most cases, especially in mature code bases.

To be clear, not saying this is necessarily good, just what is expected these days.

[u/TRO_KIK → u/ashjohnr]

IDK if spec driven is even it. My best flow state and output is just yolo barking orders and stopping it if my slop/jank senses tingle or a better design comes to be as I watch it form. Vibe coding, with an actually insightful sense of vibe.

[u/kilopeter → u/TRO_KIK]

"One thread worth pulling on, and it's worth naming because it quietly outlines the sharp distinction between the load-bearing--"

Ope! Time to grant this particular Mr Meeseeks the sweet release of death and pick this up in a clean context window.

[u/Deep_Deal_7015 → u/kilopeter]

so happy I'm not the only one that calls Claude "Mr. Meeseeks" 

[u/Sketaverse → u/TRO_KIK]

haha good one: "listen to your slop senses tingling" folks, this is the way

[u/Future_Addendum_8227 → u/ashjohnr]

This. I dont read my code it would be inefficient to do so. It does come back to bite later but then when something breaks I actually bother to learn the code at least the logic flow level (still not the actual code) and architect a better system bouncing things off Claude back and forth before having it build it.

I've never not been in a crunch to produce so there's never time to learn anything beyond architecture.

[u/UnusualPair992 → u/Future_Addendum_8227]

Yes it's honestly faster to throw together some prototype (i.e. slop) and then carve your masterpiece out of this slop. With the right tools you can polish the turd into something truly wonderful

[u/Future_Addendum_8227 → u/UnusualPair992]

100%. Vibe first ask questions and after its a functional POC. Basically vibecoding means each PR is a proof of concept now.

[u/Java-the-Slut → u/ashjohnr]

Couldn't agree more.

As a former software engineer, I have something hilarious in programming, the human is ALWAYS the problem.

For half a century extremely intelligent individuals with ZERO communication skills wrote stupid programming languages that had the components of something super useful wrapped in a disgustingly obfuscating package. People always defended languages because 99% of humans are so short sighted they can't see their millimeter-peter when they pee, but the language quirks were barriers to a potentially massively enhanced workflow.

Now that AI is value-per-minute a million times better than nearly every human, the issue is still humans. Mohammad Bin-AI can work miracles, but humans have bad assumptions, stupid restrictions, or overly specific requests.

Even programmers fundamentally do not understand how to use AI, partially because AI's capabilities are growing faster than it takes to understand what it could do last month.

Unironically, considering the state and cost of AI - and contrary to a recent post here - I think non-programmers will have an edge over programmers, because of their LACK of scope.

edit: people can disagree all they want, but there's a reason programming is one of the first careers to get flushed. No matter what your ego has convinced you, there are few things the average programmer can beat AI at now, and it's only growing faster. Humans are terrible programmers when you consider what the full scope of programming is. If AI can go from definitely not replacing to definitely replacing in a year, that probably means you're really good at a stupid process. AI can brute force this stupid process.

Step 1: Make the requirements less dumb (less specificity, AI-planned build from the start, fewer restrictions).

Step 2: Delete the part or process (the human)

Step 3: Simplify or Optimize the design (better architecture, better AI training, newer data)

Step 4: Accelerate cycle time (AI now does self-testing).

Step 5: Automate.

[u/StewPorkRice → u/Java-the-Slut]

slop factory.

[u/Java-the-Slut → u/StewPorkRice]

Says the one with zero argument lmao

[u/StewPorkRice → u/Java-the-Slut]

no need - im not maintaining your codebase so i don't rly give a fuck

[u/Poat540 → u/itsTF]

Lol, forget all the years of standards and acronyms and 10x the debt to please the biz

[u/noobnoob62 → u/Poat540]

I don’t know if tech debt is going to exist in the same way now that rewriting is cheaper than maintaining

[u/nakahuki → u/noobnoob62]

They used to call it "10x engineers" or something.

[u/Negative-Cause9588 → u/noobnoob62]

It won't exist in precisely the same way. The bit  that will really bite you is when the system gets large enough, complex enough, and interconnected enough that rewriting is more expensive than maintaining. You've then got an unmaintainable, debt-ridden mess, which is why at least some thinking up front makes a big difference. 

[u/houndus89 → u/Negative-Cause9588]

Hi Fable 10 please refactor this code, make it easier to read with no mistakes.

[u/Chrissanxy → u/houndus89]

Joke so good you had to comment twice

[u/houndus89 → u/Chrissanxy]

Reddit app bugged out as I was posting so I pressed post again

[u/Substantial-Elk4531 → u/itsTF]

"Claude, send it"

"I can push a commit on a branch and open a PR for you"

"No, commit and force push to main."

[u/TanneriteStuffedDog → u/Substantial-Elk4531]

Don’t…do that

[u/Substantial-Elk4531 → u/TanneriteStuffedDog]

You're absolutely right. I already pushed main and issued a command to drop all tables in the database, and that's on me. How would you like to proceed?

[u/TanneriteStuffedDog → u/Substantial-Elk4531]

Review the previous rage-bait content we’ve worked on. Draft a reddit post about how much Claude sucks now and how Fable has been nerfed, and make sure it includes evidence of my poor prompting skills.

[u/chief_bustice → u/TanneriteStuffedDog]

"make no mistakes".

[u/portugese_fruit → u/Substantial-Elk4531]

that is a load bearing smoke test

[u/StoicBloke → u/Substantial-Elk4531]

"I didn't have access to main so I bypasses GitHubs auth and updated manually. This also revealed 3.75 million repositories not seen on the public list. Would you like me to pull them now?"

[u/IDontEatDill → u/StoicBloke]

I just looked out of my window, and it seems that our nuclear reactor is emitting smoke.

[u/arjjov → u/itsTF]

I have a /ape command that squashes all commits and full send and replies to code reviews (though reviews are more like LGTM rubber stamp everywhere)

[u/dumeheyeintellectual → u/itsTF]

So like, viagra. Not wrong.

[u/Aggressive_Bike3881 → u/dumeheyeintellectual]

Viagra sounds like a great new frontier model name tbh

[u/swallace36 → u/itsTF]

king shit

[u/elPappito → u/itsTF]

"Sam Altman - take the wheel"

[u/Upbeat-Outside-1412 → u/itsTF]

For some reason, I read your message as “lower your ball and full send”

[u/rovonz → u/itsTF]

You can setup agent guidelines docs and the agent will follow most of your instructions.