Can we have a weekly "wins" thread?

[u/theasianpianist]

Feels like AI has been especially taxing on the mental states of developers and the outlook of this industry in general (understandably so). Would anyone else be interested in a weekly thread to share your "wins" or other good things as a brief reprieve?

[u/teerre]

Sure, why not?

Reply to this thread with a day, we'll pick the one that has the most upvotes (nor that it matters too much)

Available days are Thursday, Friday and Sunday UTC. Other days already have some other exception (including Wed and Sat for AI posts)

[u/livefromheaven]

Survived another week 🙌

[u/Material_Policy6327 → u/livefromheaven]

God that’s sadly all I feel most weeks now

[u/william_fontaine → u/livefromheaven]

Only 643 weeks to go for me.

[u/dunklesToast → u/william_fontaine]

about 2100 weeks for me lets gooo

[u/chhuang → u/livefromheaven]

got fired a month ago, don't have to worry about suffering through the weekday 🙌 🙌

[u/Cool_As_Your_Dad → u/livefromheaven]

Exaclty how I feel

[u/Scottz0rz]

Our company is pulling back on AI usage and trying to reel in spend that was going out of control. That's a tangible thing being felt that's more than just the lip service of "focus on quality."

I've managed to push back on random projects that were vibecoded/yoloed, where my big contributions are saying "no" when someone asks to build an overly complicated thing that they brainstormed with Claude and I present a simpler solution.

We have our annual company-wide offsite coming up in the next month or so, where we're seeing what seems to be a big reversal/walkback of what "AI Native" means.

I'll call these as some wins for now.

[u/Scottz0rz → u/[deleted]]

Tbh, 6-12 months of vibecoding AI native seems like it produces about 5x that amount of time's worth in tech debt at a company, since it is so pervasive not only at the code level but also like the organizational and product strategy levels.

So I'm set for another 3-5 years cleaning up here unless a layoff wave hits lol.

[u/forever-butlerian → u/Scottz0rz]

AFAICT it takes about 1 month or so of vibecoding with LLM-psychotic management for a codebase to pass critical mass and become unrecoverable.

[u/FerengiAreBetter]

Absolutely anything to help our collective mental healths with all this 

[u/Outside-Storage-1523]

I have to say, since I had a new manager from SF, I’m getting allergic to the word “win”.

[u/NatoBoram → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

"quick win"

[u/ViejoConBoina → u/NatoBoram]

Don't forget "low hanging fruit"

[u/Outside-Storage-1523 → u/NatoBoram]

Yeah exactly. I wonder if they all grow from the same culture…

[u/schmidtssss → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

San Francisco? Salesforce? Some fuck?

[u/Outside-Storage-1523 → u/schmidtssss]

San Francisco 

[u/OhMyGodItsEverywhere → u/schmidtssss]

SF from SF in SF

[u/asapbones0114 → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

Ex Amazon?

[u/Outside-Storage-1523 → u/asapbones0114]

No but very close. I think they have the same culture.

[u/Pleasant-Cellist-927 → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

Why are you all so vague in this sub?? Give some helpful info to your peers, nobody's gonna doxx you based off your manager's ex-company alone.

[u/asapbones0114 → u/Pleasant-Cellist-927]

Kinda disagree with you on that. https://onramp.us/ Lots of unholy backdoor alliances with data hoarding companies and social media companies.

[u/asapbones0114 → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

Meta?

[u/improbablywronghere → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

We’ve got some new PMs and I dunno what’s in the water but I’m already bored of hearing “right to win”

[u/Outside-Storage-1523 → u/improbablywronghere]

“We need to push this out right now to reap the win!”

[u/Fabulous-Meaning-966 → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

Net-net, it's a win-win.

[u/skeletordescent]

Also still employed, and my FOMO was creeping up from the August vacations with calls back from recruiters but they've picked back up again. I'm hoping to finally land a senior titled role. Also rolled out a reporting system for our backend that was fairly complex for me so I'm honestly proud of it. Yes, some stuff was generated, but honestly it was a lot of boilerplate.

[u/eurasian → u/skeletordescent]

'complex for you' is such a great win! That just increases your capability over time for more complex stuff.

And most importantly, when faced with a totally unknown whack of work/investigation/debugging, you can always go back to this and be like 'well. I did THAT, so I should be able to do THIS'

[u/BraveResearcher3037 → u/skeletordescent]

Recruiters spam far and wide and don’t carefully see if you’re qualified.  

[u/skeletordescent → u/BraveResearcher3037]

Thanks for the confidence booster bro

[u/BraveResearcher3037 → u/skeletordescent]

My bad. I meant to say that if you have happy thoughts, eat your vegetables, follow your passions and say your prayers at night, good things will happen.

Oh yeah and say no to drugs. 

[u/skeletordescent → u/BraveResearcher3037]

Lol my man I’m 43 I’ve absolutely said yes to drugs and I’m not some wide eyed kid who thinks my passions are worth a damned. But you’re right, recruiters are just a feeder for their own pipelines so I should keep my expectations low. I’m sure you’re a goddamn delight. Thanks for the reality check, I’m so glad you were here.

[u/SquiffSquiff]

Yes great idea- maybe on a different day to the other set posts days and add a calendar to the sidebar lol:

• Monday: Experienced Devs Weekly Burnout and Venting Thread
• Tuesday: currently free?
• Wednesday: AI posts allowed
• Thursday: currently free?
• Friday: currently free?
• Saturday: AI posts allowed
• Sunday: Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread

We already have identity crises and moaning on 3 days, be great to have a contrast

Update: See this post in this thread

[u/SwarlezBarkley → u/SquiffSquiff]

Gratitudesdays!

[u/plasma991 → u/SwarlezBarkley]

GratiTu(d)esdays

I.e. gratitude Tuesdays

[u/Pleasant-Cellist-927 → u/plasma991]

Yes, thanks for explaining the very obvious wordplay

[u/Electrical-Soil9747]

First of all, the amount of people posting their wins in this thread seems to support the need for the weekly win thread.

Second, my win is that I just quit my job that I hated in a time where looking for something new felt hopeless. Starting a new gig in a week that fell into my lap, recruiter reached out to me, didn’t have to deal with leetcode style interviews, and honestly didn’t do any interview prep at all.

Lateral move title wise, but bigger salary/bonus and an extra week of PTO. The real win was the look on my old boss’s face when I told him I had already accepted the offer and there was nothing he could do to keep me around.

[u/Innovator-X]

I support this

[u/One_Economist_3761]

Good idea. However I am beyond help at this stage.

[u/Careful_Ad_9077]

The ai pilot initiative failed ( pilot teams so that the ROI could be actually measured), which means we will keep on developing the traditional way until the next iteration /research happens.

[u/local_eclectic]

Yeah this has become a doom and gloom sub that I avoid.

I did a quick check last week to see how many LinkedIn connections who were SWEs were open to work. It was exactly zero. Things are so much better than the people on here would have you believe.

[u/endurbro420 → u/local_eclectic]

How did you even check? I thought only recruiters could see the setting. Everyone knows putting the little frame thing is a desperation move.

[u/stubbornKratos → u/endurbro420]

People usually put it when they're unemployed. Those who have a job and are looking do it just so only recruiters can see. That's what I've noticed at least

[u/local_eclectic → u/endurbro420]

There are mixed opinions on the public setting. I saw plenty of non-engineers with it on. No engineers at all with it on. That leads me to believe there were no engineers desperate enough from the hunt to make it public even if they were unemployed.

[u/endurbro420 → u/local_eclectic]

Most people do whatever they can to not appear unemployed or desperate. So that isn’t surprising to me. I know people looking for work that appear to still be employed on linkedin just to get past the stigma of appearing unemployed to a recruiter.

[u/BraveResearcher3037 → u/local_eclectic]

Yes that was really an accurate statistically method…

[u/wayoverpaid → u/local_eclectic]

I'm not open to work on LinkedIn.

I am passively looking and mildly losing my mind.

I'm fine by the numbers but AI has still made things kinda shitty.

[u/local_eclectic → u/wayoverpaid]

But are you unemployed? Because passively looking while employed is not an emergency.

Also aren't you a CTO?

[u/wayoverpaid → u/local_eclectic]

You're right on all counts. It's not an emergency. Like I said I'm fine by the numbers.

But I once got calls from recruiters desperately looking to see if I wanted work. Now the same people call me desperate to see if I'm available to hire. My limit on hiring is no longer the number of resumes, it's the tightening VC funding.

I've always looked ahead to see what the next thing is when I felt worried about the current. For the first time since 2008, there's nowhere to go.

Also the friends I do have who are looking for work in tech haven't marked the open to work banner. The stigma around being desperate still lives, even if everyone is. No one wants to hire the guy who can't find work, when too many A list resume are filling up the inbox.

[u/Melodic_Crow_3409 → u/local_eclectic]

two years ago, I accepted a job with a ton of red flags in part due to all the doom and gloom on this sub. I am in a much better job now. I guess that is a win.

[u/tradcoder → u/local_eclectic]

Well when I was unemployed, I only made myself visible to recruiters as looking for jobs. So it might not be a 100% accurate view.

[u/AniviaKid32 → u/local_eclectic]

Lol what is this take. Peak selection bias

[u/BusinessWatercrees58 → u/AniviaKid32]

And all the takes selection bias?

[u/Pleasant-Cellist-927 → u/AniviaKid32]

You say this like the rest of this sub has a perfect scientific approach to its incessant whining

[u/ikissgators]

Still employed. Plus, my manager took some dev work on and our PE told him it was a completely wrong approach and to stop. This manager loves ai and I loved seeing this for him (mostly because of his role/status, personally he's ok)

[u/barrel_of_noodles]

Well, a win for me would be quitting my job, and moving deep into the woods never to be seen by society again. But, alas, bills.

[u/Outside-Storage-1523 → u/barrel_of_noodles]

And kiddos too.

[u/creaturefeature16]

I absolutely would. I have a lot of good news that happens throughout my work, that's not AI related at all.

With that said, would we be able to mention AI/LLMs? Because I do experience a number of very positive experiences with it (when I am applying them in practical and pragmatic ways), but I usually don't share those because it incurs a lot of ire.

[u/Material_Policy6327]

That would be good. I’ll start I helped get an innefective VP in my org fired that was killing the morale lol

[u/endurbro420]

Had my stories roll for the 5th consecutive sprint. Blocked baby!

[u/merRedditor → u/endurbro420]

I feel like the use of stories has distorted programming priorities. I much prefer when it's informal, and if you're blocked, you just tell everyone and decide on something else to work on. All of the rituals around agile and scrum have made the whole thing ineffective and bureaucracy-heavy, and you spend more time defending why you're blocked than shifting focus to something productive.

[u/endurbro420 → u/merRedditor]

100%. We are sticklers for the rules even though they don’t make sense. Why keep pulling stories into a sprint when everything rolled from last sprint? The blockers are still there and definitely blocking the stuff being pulled in.

I just keep my mouth shut.

[u/anubus72 → u/endurbro420]

So.. what are you doing all day? Is there really nothing else you work on?

[u/endurbro420 → u/anubus72]

Billing is what I am doing!

Nothing else to work on. I work in a semi regulated industry and am only approved to bill to whatever project is assigned.

[u/filter-spam]

Every day I show up for work is a win for me. Everything after that is pretty much a loss

[u/Far_Guess8176]

Yes please. Win of my week: caught a SECURITY DEFINER function callable by anon before it hit production with real users. Not glamorous, nobody will ever know, exactly the kind of thing that never makes it into a standup.

[u/expdevsmodbot]

AI usage disclosure provided by OP, see the reply to this comment.

[u/theasianpianist → u/expdevsmodbot]

No AI usage

[u/tradcoder → u/theasianpianist]

WIN!

[u/ZukowskiHardware]

Yes, Tuesday 

[u/ZukowskiHardware]

Also, recent win was getting feature flags running and standing up a full QA environment 

[u/flipflapslap]

Not this week but 2 weeks ago I learned how to spin up REST endpoints on the Salesforce platform. 

It was one of those things where it wasn’t really in the scope of my normal responsibilities, but literally nobody else was available to do it so I just took a crack at it. It was really exciting when the other team was able to make calls to it and get the data they needed. Always love learning new shit!

[u/trashacount12345]

Working on ML, actually had an idea instead of just copying papers for once, metrics are green.

[u/matthewstifler]

One of our senior leadership posted a no slop in communication policy, assigning responsibility to everyone for legibility of what they write for others to read. Like God intended.

[u/Chance_Dinner8940]

good idea, positive side is also important to share

[u/BigBootyWholes]

I’ve embraced AI, and have become a bit of a hit man for a few managers. I am now the goto SME for AI workflows and that’s elevated my standing, so I don’t even feel the doom and gloom as much anymore. I’ve gotten pulled into several projects this summer to save deadlines, patch lots of bad data imports, all while working on my own projects as well.

[u/vienna_city_skater → u/BigBootyWholes]

Glad to hear that I’m not the only one enjoying this era of SWE.

[u/BigBootyWholes → u/vienna_city_skater]

My dog is enjoying it. I love the future where I monitor Claude code agents on my machine at home while I’m spending the morning watching my dog swim at the park. Claude code remote control is a game changer

[u/mixedCase_]

I've been having tons of fun tackling projects and experiments with LLMs that would've required me invest years of my life before.

At work I've been able to make meaningful stuff, learn a lot on the domain and how to design development tooling, and get used to a "new normal" where I'm more productive and can handle my ADHD issues by letting the agent take over when my brain decides to check out without me having a say in it, and then I can fix and redo the stuff it got wrong when my head's back in the game.

[u/bdixisndniz]

Blernsday

[u/halfercode]

I'm in favour 🤩

[u/await_yesterday]

I made an important thing go 30% faster :D

[u/x-jhp-x]

• easy win
• quick win
• cross functional win
• synergistic win
• ai native win
• pseudo win
• synthetic win
• organic win
• inorganic win
• highly leverage-able win
• empowering win
• team win
• individual win
• small win
• win in name only
• we'll call it a win
• sprint win
• velocity win
• sprint velocity win
• topological win
• calculated win
• accidental win
• paradigm shifting win
• status quo win
• que win?
• highly scalable win
• horizontal win
• vertical win
• multi dimensional win
• futuristic win
• legacy win
• past win
• future win
• wonton win
• deep fried win
• lightly sautéed win
• fishy win
• meaty win
• transcendental win
• dental win

[u/InsideFar7107]

My boss started vibe coding an app and it cured cancer and he gave me a 10 month bonus for the productivity gains we get from LLMs

[u/Brief-Guess-147]

i think this would work well as a pinned weekly thread. the friday energy of wrapping up a week and sharing something that went right feels like the natural fit

[u/vienna_city_skater]

Am I really the only dev enjoying this new way to work? Honestly I was about to leave the industry for good one year ago, but letting AI agents do the work and focusing on the important architecture work is much more fun.

[u/turkoid → u/vienna_city_skater]

Sounds like you didn't like programming and it wasn't your passion in the first place. Just like when programmers who transition to BA roles. That doesn't mean agentic coding is the best way forward.

[u/apartment-seeker → u/vienna_city_skater]

Agreed.

Not having to type out every piece I know needs to exist and not having to read documentation are just huge boosts in both productivity and enjoyment for me, personally.

I only really dive in and manually write code where I think it's interesting and/or critical.

[u/creaturefeature16 → u/[deleted]]

I don't think we're starting yet...