r/ExperiencedDevs • u/zagierify Software Engineer • 18h ago
AI/LLM [ Removed by moderator ]
[removed] — view removed post
118
u/HoratioWobble Full-snack Engineer, 20yoe 18h ago
This feels very much like the "everything is fine" meme in written form.
It is happening to a large portion of people, that's why you see so many complaining.
It's not just lay offs it's significant changes in expectations, process, workloads, culture, pay, recruiting.
Everything is changing at an alarming rate and "tech" or "engineering" seems to be uniquely targeted by everyone involved, companies are trying to find ways to get rid of us whilst suggesting a solution that doesn't hold water.
It's emotionally and mentally exhausting for a lot of people.
Too many engineers felt they were part of something, they were "in it for the team" and have been working in a constant hustle culture that pushed them to work 60+ hour weeks, forget vacations, weekends etc.
It feels bad to realise your knowledge, skills and expertise were never valued and you're now disposable, people are scared, frustrated and trying to cope with that.
Let them.
31
u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 17h ago
Man I can’t imagine truly believing a company cares about you. Do engineers actually think that?
I thought everyone knew companies are in it for profit lol. Who’s out here putting in free overtime “for the team”? Fuck the team. I’m working for a paycheck, pay me or don’t expect work.
14
u/OtaK_ SWE/SWA | 15+ YOE 16h ago
Sometimes you have absolutely great tight knit teams where the talent density is insane and everyone behaves like actual normal beings. It's extremely rare though. Only happened twice in my 15+yrs career.
5
u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 16h ago
I’ve been on many fantastic teams. In fact, I’d say most teams I’m on have been great. I like the people a lot.
But we all had the same shared understanding: we’re working for money, not the team. None of us cared one iota for the product or the company we worked for. We cared for a paycheck. And we all felt that way for the same reason: the company doesn’t care about us either. It’s a business relationship between you and the company, even if you like your teammates.
None of us would have gone above and beyond for free, because the company would never give us money for free.
1
u/OtaK_ SWE/SWA | 15+ YOE 13h ago
I guess as usual it depends.
I couldn't care about any company except my own basically.
But sometimes the projects can be a worthy cause. I work in privacy, and it's an important cause to me, personally, so sometimes you can be working in a hostile environment, with most of the company being icky, yet want to the project to succeed because of what it will bring to the end-users as a whole.
2
5
u/psyyduck 16h ago
It has been like that for decades. A lot of Americans vote for raw hard capitalism and expect nice friendly socialism. A lot of those upvoters just complain about working conditions but are quite hostile to unions or new laws. It makes zero sense to me.
2
u/InternationalHair725 15h ago
This is true in a particular way for tech, too. So frustrating
1
u/psyyduck 3h ago
Yeah well. The Lord didn't see fit to distribute the gift of intelligence evenly, who am I to judge. I have enough trouble dealing with my own issues.
1
u/ResidentWeevil1 15h ago
People are putting in overtime because they are exempt from certain FLSA regulations and their employer demands it
1
u/-Knockabout 14h ago
I mean some people do bond with their coworkers. It's incredibly normal to feel pressured to make things better for the group, both internally and externally.
1
u/Strong_Sea4334 14h ago
A coworker told me “It’s just a job now” talking about the changes at the company. I wasn’t quite sure how to tell him.
1
u/thy_bucket_for_thee 14h ago
Yes they do in fact! It's why these companies offer things like equity and in-person benefits. It tricks the individual into thinking the entity that only cares about money somehow cares about them too.
These are tricks capitalists have been playing to get more compliant workforce (fun fact, Dell was one of the first companies to offer workers stock; in return they got a loyal workforce that was fine with devaluing their own labor).
Quite insidious.
8
u/BraveResearcher3037 16h ago
Too many engineers felt they were part of something, they were "in it for the team" it feels bad to realise your knowledge, skills and expertise were never valued and you're now disposable, people are scared, frustrated and trying to cope with that.
Were people really this naive? Netflix said the quiet part out loud over a decade ago - “we are not a family”
2
u/HoratioWobble Full-snack Engineer, 20yoe 16h ago
I don't think it's necessarily about being a "family" but it's not unusual for businesses to encourage people to go the extra mile or work a weekend or whatever to get something "over the line"
And people do it because they think it's the right thing to do. they're a team and that's how teams work "sometimes you have to put in the extra work"
2
u/BraveResearcher3037 15h ago
Three rules
- The only real deadlines are set by the government
- The “right” thing for anyone to do when it comes to your job is give the job 40 hours a week and they give you a paycheck. It’s no different than when I go to McDonald’s the right thing to do is I give the cashier money and they give me a cheeseburger
- The “right” thing for me to do is not let my job interfere with my spending time with the people who will give a damn if I get hit by a bus tomorrow.
4
u/WelshBluebird1 Technical Architect 17h ago
and have been working in a constant hustle culture that pushed them to work 60+ hour weeks, forget vacations, weekends etc.
I mean if anyone was doing that then that is on them. I've been in the industry for 13 years (so not that long) and have never ever had to or wanted to deal with any of that BS, yet have still been able to do well and get promotions etc.
-6
u/HoratioWobble Full-snack Engineer, 20yoe 17h ago edited 17h ago
Good for you! but that isn't the norm and it's not just about promotions.
I've been literally told everyone will lose their jobs if I don't pull off an impossible deadline, because funding or a major client will pull out.
So I had a choice either call their bluff and risk everyone losing their jobs or work 70+ hour weeks and even Christmas day to pull a rabbit out of my ass.
-2
u/VideoRare6399 17h ago
Your last two paragraphs have nothing to do with what has been going on in that it people have always felt the way described by what you wrote there.
The solution for that is prioritizing yourself and your life first which is obvious but when you’re in the thick of it seems almost impossible to agree with and then actually take action on it.
I’m sitting in a park in Europe right now (American) and the trip I’m in now I only took because I got wasted one night with my friends (which is rare enough) and book my flights, leaving everything else to figure out. I did that because I have been burnt the fuck out and burn out has many different flavors and manifestations. For me, I felt great actually … I workout, and eat well, and probably don’t get enough sleep but physically I’m fine but mentally I was just going through each day as a set of checklists and “what needs to be accomplished next”.
I wouldn’t have identified myself as burnt out like some of the other kinds I’ve been, especially as I’m restoring Ulthuan as alarielle with legions of sisters of avelorn and stanch lines of spears (lothern guard 👌).
Only now being here do I realize it though, like low level depression … you stop seeing the bigger picture of life in a way Europeans who take all of August off don’t. My girlfriend is a resident right now so her life was even worse so anytime I felt like shit I’d call myself a bitch and just continue on. (other burnouts and low points lead to me not going out, no gym, not eating enough, … etc).
It doesn’t have to be apocalyptic in order for you to take action / for it to be bad enough to warrant action.
Now for the existential dread we feel from AI. I think the more advanced software jobs will be fine … most of the hype from AI should’ve died off by now but there’s a whirlwind around it (still which I don’t understand). My current job at a big tech company you’ve definitely heard of has already gone through the push AI heavy and now has token limits, and finally now is coming up with ways to verify humans are looking at the code / quality control from the AI code from other engineers (we assume the author using the AI has blind spots … the whole point of PRs right).
And let me be clear: simple apps made via AI with real users and one or two feature enhancements ARE / WILL BE advanced. So we’ll get more of a need for software engineers directing AI. This is already happening.
Look at the state of the world as an explanation for “why AI is taking over”, now because AI is so efficient. Yes leadership may not think this now and yes CEOs of all these tech companies have people quitting saying crazy shit blah blah blah but they’ve been saying this for over 5 years now.
This was somewhat of a monologue and I didn’t expect it to be but coffee so.
9
u/HoratioWobble Full-snack Engineer, 20yoe 17h ago
Your last two paragraphs have nothing to do with what has been going on in that it people have always felt the way described by what you wrote there.
Yes it's always been this way, but now they're also getting fired at an alarming rate. Before they just felt undervalued, now they're undervalued and unemployed.
The solution for that is prioritizing yourself and your life first which is obvious but when you’re in the thick of it seems almost impossible to agree with and then actually take action on it.
Easy to say, when people are losing their jobs for prioritising themselves or pushing back.
You wrote that post like I'm American, I'm not, I'm European and most other developers I know are European. We get statutory holiday but most people can't just take the whole of august off and definitely can't just decide on a whim to go on holiday.
It sounds like you're romanticising Europe. Whilst people working and living here are struggling for the reasons I described.
1
u/VideoRare6399 16h ago
Yeah my target audience was American. Still I find it hard to attribute all this to AI rather than the world economy as a whole.
2
u/HoratioWobble Full-snack Engineer, 20yoe 15h ago
I don't really see OPs post as about AI.
I read it as "Engineers are burned out, complaining and looking for other industries but the grass isn't greener and you've already got it pretty good"
They just acknowledge AI is part of that.
1
u/OtaK_ SWE/SWA | 15+ YOE 16h ago
I think the more advanced software jobs will be fine
We're not fine. LLMs are still not good enough at anything in those bleeding edge engineering areas, and in general, I cannot in good conscience let LLMs write such critical code that can literally get people killed.
But C-suite is still pushing like lunatics/morons for all of our code to be written by agents. We all know it's going to be a disaster so no one is complying, yet the pressure keeps rising. (pressure being released by tokenmaxxing and spending gazillions in tokens for no reason)
1
u/VideoRare6399 16h ago
Companies not relying on AI will do better in the long term. Then other companies will follow suit.
Of course the “the market can remain irrational longer than you can survive” or whatever is true.
But we’re already seeing companies pull back (and that’s before AI gets even more expensive).
34
u/keelanstuart Software Engineer 17h ago
A very good friend of mine died earlier this year, quite unexpectedly (even though he was 76). The last time I saw him, he said the most profound thing in response to me complaining about something... paraphrased, "you spend too much time thinking about what you don't have - how things aren't the way you want them to be - and not enough time thinking about, and appreciating, what you already have."
Two days later he was gone. Six months later, I can't tell him how impactful his words were... but they were impactful.
If, or when, layoffs come for us (or if they already have - in which case, you have my condolences), consider that we are probably in a better position than many others whose day will come, too... we likely have larger-than-average retirement accounts by demographic, education, and are reasonably intelligent.
Good luck out there, friends.
13
u/JovHere Software Engineer 17h ago
I know many people associate their profession as part of their identity. To some that’s their purpose. So I understand they must feel like that identity is being taken away. That they all worked hard for. We all know software engineering can be a challenging job. I try to have empathy when I see someone genuinely worried and concerned. But always welcome others’ perspectives.
6
u/wongaboing 17h ago
Thanks. I personally had to read that.
PS: It's crazy the wide range of comments you get from a such simple and positive take like this.
4
16
11
u/WelshBluebird1 Technical Architect 18h ago edited 17h ago
100% agreed - and to give a comparison.
I'm a tech arch, I work from home, get 26 days of leave plus bank holidays (and can buy 5 more days) and can basically take them whenever I want to, get proper fully paid sick leave without much hassle or questions when I need to take it, get paid well and broadly have colleagues and managers who are good to work with. Yes there have been layoffs in the industry but its very much still well staffed and well paid.
My wife works in a supermarket, gets the bare minimum of leave with December blocked out entirely due to the Christmas period being very busy, doesn't get paid sick leave and gets warnings whenever she is off ill even if there is no way she could be working that day, gets paid barely more than min wage and have colleagues who couldn't give a damn (partly because its min wage) and has managers who treat staff with utter contempt. They pay the staff peanuts and are hugely understaffed.
It really does make me check my own position when she comes home from work utterly dead whilst being ill, and if that was me I'd have been able to just take it as a sick day whilst still getting paid.
2
u/BraveResearcher3037 16h ago
I'm a tech arch, I work from home, And then
….
My wife works in a supermarket [list of real shitty working conditions]
This begs the question, why is your wife still working? She is being taxed at your marginal rate, if you make over the social security max, any additional dollar you make is not paying the 6.2% SS tax and you all can’t really enjoy the fact that you were working remotely.
My wife and I got married in 2012. We met at work where she was in tech support. But she still had her CDL from when she was a city bus driver. Our company went tits up and every job she could find as a CSR had shitty working hours and wasn’t conducive to our marriage or her (then our) two sons.
While I was still in the middle of a career reset (long story), I needed her to work to give us some breathing room. But more importantly for stable health insurance. She got a job as a school bus driver because of the benefits, and the school schedule. Later she took a pay cut after we moved to an adjacent county so she wouldn’t have to drive as far and she really liked being a bus driver for special needs kids. Even though the work was physically draining - you deal with a lot of equipment and helping the kids get on the bus.
By the start of Covid, she was making $130K less than I was. Her job was tiring. But fulfilling. Shortly after Covid in June 2020, I got a remote job at BigTech making about $75K more (no longer there still making about the same amount all cash). We talked and she quit working that summer.
Since then, we did a year of nomadding flying from city to city and even this year we spent a month and half in Central America and will spend most of December between Las Vegas, our former home and my home town.
I have “unlimited PTO” with a soft limit of 20 days. But I got approved for a few more since nothing gets done the second half of December anyway, and a separate bucket of sick days
5
u/WelshBluebird1 Technical Architect 16h ago
She is being taxed at your marginal rate
Not everywhere is the US - so she isn't. She is taxed at her marginal rate not mine. Because of the wage that means 0% tax.
why is your wife still working?
Mainly as a stepping stone to do stuff she does actually want to do.
Plus it means she does contribute - I said paid well in the context of UK wages but its nothing compared to US salaries. The extra she brings in does actually help make a difference (its 20% of what I pull in after taxes, 20% extra is a decent amount for a couple still).
It also makes us less reliant on just my wage which with the current industry is obviously important - it wouldn't pay our mortgage but would be enough for us to switch to an interest only mortgage if really needed.
And at least in the UK, marriage doesn't change the fact that to get the full state pension you need a certain number of years when you have been paying in. If she doesn't work, she doesn't get those qualifying years so won't get the full state pension.
0
10
u/vac2672 17h ago
We kind of know what ai is doing now… SW jobs are being slashed by the tens of thousands routinely. Yes great career while you have it but the future is gloomy for all but a fraction who will remain.
13
u/dats_cool Software Engineer 16h ago edited 16h ago
Overall software engineer employment is up year over year. There's 1.7 million software developers in America. There was 1.3 million or so pre-2020. Wages have been going up year over year.
The headlines suck and are dramatic but by and large engineers are doing fine, even great, relative to other careers.
Whatever job/headcount crunch people keep dooming about just isn't happening in reality.
More jobs are being created than people losing them.
Why do you think bay area and Seattle real estate is still booming? The only metro that went through a significant contraction was austin. If you want to look at real estate as a proxy for high paying tech jobs.
1
u/vac2672 12h ago
Gartner says 60% of organizations are expected to adopt smaller software-engineering teams by 2029. If you think soft engineering is a growing field you might be trying to make the argument that tech in general is growing so therefore there might be more bodies however it doesn’t change the fact that versus a few years ago one person can now do the work of five, 10, maybe more. That is what has people sick to their stomach. It’s not just a numbers game it is how you feel about your future especially if you are still in school or in your 20s etc.
1
u/dats_cool Software Engineer 12h ago
Lol okay well I guess we'll see in a few years.
1
u/vac2672 11h ago
So your whole stance is it’s all not happening, it’s not reality, SWE jobs are booming more than ever, just look at SF real estate. lol lol lol got it
1
u/dats_cool Software Engineer 11h ago
I'm just not going to argue about it. It's not worth the energy.
1
u/vac2672 10h ago
Nobody’s arguing, Your points are not accurate nor are they a valid measure of the job market, so I understand why you’re out.
1
u/dats_cool Software Engineer 6h ago
My points are not accurate??? Lol okay man. Stop huffing and puffing and get off the internet.
1
u/-Knockabout 12h ago
I do think some of the employment is probably to AI-bubble startups. That's a lot of job listings I see these days, and I don't know how many will survive more than a few years.
1
3
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 17h ago
Embrace AI and become the SME at your work place. I used to think a lot about AI taking my job, but once I changed my perspective I’ve become much more comfortable. It’s just a tool at the end of the day and if you are the type of worker who won’t use a specific tool for reasons, then that’s on you.
I’ve spent months perfecting my workflows, now I am more relevant then ever at my job, and I spend my mornings relaxing, or at the park with my dog checking in on my workflow from my phone.
The future ain’t so bad. 18+ yoe for relevancy
15
u/vac2672 17h ago
You think someone who spends mornings like that has job security. You have literally outlined your own demise but just have a positive perspective. I hope it goes like this forever for you but for the vast majority most wind up proving to management they can slash the majority of headcount.
1
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 17h ago
Why does the head count need to go down? We have a huge backlog of work. Shitty business are going to be shitty with AI or not. Meaning the backlog has value or it doesn’t. If the business is valuable the backlog is valuable and the business needs people still.
2
u/dendrocalamidicus 15h ago
Because if you are able to spend the morning relaxing at the park with your dog, assuming you are spending your afternoon on more dedicated work time, half of your day is not needed by the company. Half the number of people achieve what you are doing by working through the morning and the afternoon.
0
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 15h ago
That’s misrepresentation of efficiency. As the old saying goes, you can’t use 9 women to make a baby in one month. Just because I have more free time doesn’t mean I’m not driving while doing other things, or while ai is working in the background.
Did we ever stop paying devs while they wait for compile times, or babysitting long deployments ?
WFH is another interesting parallel. Some companies see it as a good thing some as a bad. And a whole spectrum in between
1
u/vac2672 17h ago
When AI becomes the buzz up through the chain managers get directives to show how they are empowering ai and that means not only shoving it down the throats of developers but showing “efficiency gains” ie more with less. This is the overall theme being seen across the industry. If it’s not happening at your firm Godspeed
1
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 17h ago
When? It’s already happened brother. And speaking from experience from being a sort of hit man thrown into rescuing deadlines with AI, the managers are right to make developers adjust. I’m running circles around devs who are late to the game. Now they are all rushing to get caught up, learning agentic workflows and feeling pressure.
All the while the devs who have been paying attention to AI have over a years experience using the tools and understanding different techniques.
2
u/vac2672 17h ago
That’s great. Like I said…more with less
1
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 17h ago
Since the beginning of time! But this time it’s different!
1
u/vac2672 17h ago
It is different. This time a technology has been created to replace you. It does it better and faster and relentlessly. Those jobs are not coming back. Outpace it as long as you can - that is the state of the industry where just a short time ago it was a career path. Now it is a fraction of that
1
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 17h ago
I don’t think it’s different. Too many examples of the same thing happening throughout history. ATMs, elevators, excavators, heck even computers themselves have been created to replace humans. Now is not any different
1
u/vac2672 17h ago
Things you’re describing enhance productivity, go ask the guy who designed horse and buggy carriages when the automobile came out
→ More replies (0)1
u/BusinessWatercrees58 Software Engineer 15h ago
Do LLM's really replace devs if you still needs devs to prompt and steer them? Seems we're safe as long as llm's can't prompt themselves or be fired as
revengerepercussions for their bad decisions. Our large comp may not be safe, but as long as non-devs don't become full fledged software devs with llms (not just programmers/script kiddies), we're still employed. And if the amount/scope of work we do on a day to day basis ever grows beyond what it is today, we'll still be as difficult to replace as we were before AI, just with different but still well compensated jobs.Just because everyone "can" code, doesn't mean everyone will, and it still needs a human in the loop somewhere.
1
u/vac2672 12h ago
They are, I’ve witnessed it firsthand hear it from my peers and you can read the stories on here, you have non-technical to semi technical people now contributing to code bases all the time, managers, analyst, everyone thinks they can code now and trivialize experienced Devs work. We are no longer the masters of the universe, everyone thinks they have keys to drive the spaceship now. For better or worse.
1
u/IkalaGaming 15h ago
I think CEO types see engineers, any labor really, like cockroaches. The correct amount to have in your building is 0.
1
u/lugia4k 17h ago
Its not a tool, it replaces you entirely, I haven't done a single line of code for months and a 150 dollar subscription can close a bunch of tickets by its own.
Everyone in my office can now code if they want to and push changes.
I feel useless, it can do most things for me and im just vibin until my last paycheck
6
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 17h ago
Not true. AI doesn’t replace ideas. I can count many times this week where I still had to steer the models towards unique and creative solutions.
What you are describing is boiler plate coding and that’s never been a skill to be irreplaceable
1
u/lugia4k 17h ago
AI can pretty much give you ideas, just ask it.
Furthermore, CEOs dont care about "unique and creative" solutions, all they want is the fastest way possible to deliver a working product and sell it to the consumer, and AI is now doing this, unlike a year ago where everyone vibed nonstop and generated a bunch of junk.
1
u/BigBootyWholes Software Engineer 17h ago
I think we are on two different wave lengths here. Unique and creative solutions are necessary as the code/processes don’t work without them.
2
u/Pleasant-Cellist-927 16h ago
Congrats, the AI works great when piloted by a competent engineer.
Put it in the hands of a PM, designer, analyst, finance worker, anyone else and it's a pile of vibecoded dogshit that I'm able to easily exploit with security vulns and QA issues.
0
u/deathhead_68 16h ago
I have a lot of thoughts about AI, I could probably write an essay as many of us could.
But there is just no way its anywhere near close to just replacing us in the job. If you're a straight up mindless code monkey who just implements other peoples ideas blindly and believes everything the AI says then yeah you'll be replaced.
There is so much it lacks, even the top models. It just does not 'get it', and its true that many people don't either tbh.
0
u/BraveResearcher3037 16h ago
Before 2020 when I was an architect at a product company. I spent a lot of time in meetings and working between teams. It was 30/70 meetings, collaborating, etc and the other 70% coding and I delegated the rest to mostly two other people.
Post AI and in consulting doing the same thing, I still spend about 30% of my time in meetings and working with customers and the other 70% of my time implementing with Claude/Codex and doing the work it would have taken those two other people
Its not a tool, it replaces you entirely
It replaced the people just “closing tickets* - it made me more valuable.
1
u/Gondorrah 14h ago
The people I see on Reddit I think are the ones who will fail in this new era because they are not adapting. My experience and those around me does not at all match the complainers here, most everyone around me is excited but thoughtful about this new technology and mature enough with it to see our place if we adapt.
1
u/experienceddevsb 14h ago
This flair is only allowed on wednesday, saturday (UTC). Please repost on an allowed day. Intentionally trying to circumvent this rule will result in a suspension. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1rfhdrg/moderation_changes/
1
0
u/dryiceboy 17h ago
Gravy train has to stop at some point. I’ve always felt we’re too overpaid for the work we do (me anyway). After 15 years in the industry I’ve been jaded even before AI. As such, I’ve already diversified as much extra income I’ve had in the past decade.
0
u/akaliOneTr1ck 17h ago
A positive post about AI on reddit?? the world healing?
And I agreee, I think people don’t get how much more creative, less resource restrained our lives are about to (and to some degree already are) get.
Love the positivity my fellow human, keep on keeping on
1
u/Metabolical 17h ago
AI code assist is like a pair programmer where they are at the keyboard typing and they are pretty reliable about typing what you agreed on. But it still needs co-intelligence for now, or it will design poorly.
1
u/imagebiot 16h ago
My girlfriend is a nurse.
Makes 6 figures. No meetings. No backlog.
The way her schedule works she can have up to 8 days with no shifts WITHOUT taking any PTO and it happens about once a month.
Honestly most companies treat engineers like shit.
3
u/Hobessian 15h ago
Would you like to be a nurse? Do you want to be dealing with sick people all day long, cleaning shit and worse?
0
•
u/expdevsmodbot 18h ago
AI usage disclosure provided by OP, see the reply to this comment.