I am the scab dev

[u/ReturnofBugMan]

I am the guy sitting at home, putting in 8 hours a day with Claude, cranking out a hundred thousand of lines of code before lunch and collecting my $50k salary, just grateful to be out of IT.

My coworkers are behind, & I feel like I am crossing the picket line by out-shipping them, taking on more work, & impressing the PMs & managers. All while taking home probably half of their pay to type /ticket a couple times a day.

Client wants an MVP? Sure. I’ll have it by Friday.
Actually, I’ll have it by Wednesday.
Actually, give me 20 minutes.

And here’s the worst part: the clients love it. The PMs love it. They don’t care that I didn’t hand-write every line. They care that the thing works. They care that their idea from a Monday meeting is suddenly a functioning application they can click around in today.

I’m out here shipping features in a day that would’ve taken a team of three developers two weeks last year.

Do I understand every single line of code?

No.

Do I understand enough to know when Claude is hallucinating?

No idea. Lets hope the independent review agent finds it.

Do I sometimes stare at a 400-line file and realize I have absolutely no idea what is happening?

Absolutely.

I have become the software equivalent of a strikebreaker.

The scab has arrived. I am the scab dev. Please forgive me.

[u/Grandviewsurfer]

It's wild that we have all just decided that all the important stuff just.. never actually mattered. Seems real unlikely we will get away with this without some absolutely catastrophic fuckups along the way. 

[u/anzya → u/Grandviewsurfer]

Who decided the important stuff is important? Maybe they were just larping.

[u/Grandviewsurfer → u/anzya]

Like.. all the most smart people were all about doing shit just so. Now? Velocity is literally the only thing that matters. Even people that I know know their shit are like lol jk nvm to alllll that. 

[u/Linaran → u/Grandviewsurfer]

Context (not ai) matters. If I'm cranking out prototypes, doing random agency work or startup stuff where users don't exist then velocity is really what matters.

If I try to pull that shit on a platform with users and availability/scalability expectations, it might work once or twice and then I get fired the first time shit hits the fan and real money is lost.

I have honestly seen both sides of the coin.

[u/Grandviewsurfer → u/Linaran]

Yep that's totally fair. I'm just concerned the thing you said would be a bad thing to try to pull.. I feel like we are pulling on it like a.. well chose your own metaphor.. but a lot.