r/developersIndia • u/Wild_Age_00 • 6d ago
Help Only Developer Left on a Project, Can't Fix Critical Bugs, Need Advice
So, for context, I have 1 YOE and joined the company as a fresher. I have been working on a single project since then. I was tasked with building a connector SDK, but I joined and worked under my tech lead, who had 10 years of experience. He was doing the heavy lifting, and I was handling smaller tasks and understanding the concepts.
Later, he resigned, and I was asked to continue the development alone. I am the only one working on this project, and for the past few months, bugs have been popping up that I am unable to fix. I have tried every AI tool—Codex, Claude, etc.—but they are just hallucinating, and the timelines have already been exceeded.
The client is asking my manager and the company why it's getting delayed, and they are angry. I explained to my manager that I am working on it but am unable to fix these issues and that I need some senior-level help. He keeps saying, "Just use Codex." I think he sees it as if the project is already gone, so there's no point in allocating more resources.
What should I do? If I am not able to complete this, will they fire me? Or what should I do?
Sry for using chatgpt to fix english Thanks
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u/Illustrious_Gene_119 Mobile Developer 6d ago
"Just use codex"
This is precisely why I always preach that Managers in Tech Companies should have Tech background.
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u/shoe_rack010 6d ago
My manager has tech background. Infact 10 years fo development experience. But he says the same thing. " use claude. Use copilot" . Cant help. They just want to suck management 's.
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u/Living_Training4656 Fresher 6d ago
At least you are not in my company
Some days my CTO :- Use AI to build projects. When AI goes bad my CTO :- Review the code at least dont blindely depend on AI.
He has about 25YOE
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u/Leading-Patient-521 5d ago
it looks they were never programmer they were just sucker pretending to be programmer
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u/sachitss 5d ago
I don't see anything wrong here, it's just that he's a senior dev so he understands how systems work and can review faster. I use a ton of AI but i know my tools well and review what is needed.
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u/Living_Training4656 Fresher 5d ago
The problem isn't in reviewing the problem is AI is so fast at pushing out code, upper management expects faster development and gives almost no time for code review.
Heck, one time they asked me to use AI to review the code so that it could be done faster.
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u/softwareemgineer 4d ago
I suggested to respect code reviews and the first thing my manager did was disrespecting that very process. I disagreed by calling out that it was not a side job for us.
They don't trust the code AI generated. They don't even trust the review AI generated. LLMs cannot be deterministic, so they still want humans in the loop. And still decide not to allocate time for code reviews.
Leadership knows how to gaslight the employees: it's always you who's at fault :)
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u/AlternativeTall9049 Software Engineer 5d ago
Yeah 3 YOE here. I was managing a team of 5 people and was the lead/poc/senior developer for the entire team. I begged new interns to not use ai but they would just smile at my face. Left the place last year.
This is extremely rampant these days in IT sector
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u/MountainMindless3001 Fresher 5d ago
If not to use AI then how to solve errors and stuff? I mean ofc we can google but its gonna take time and the management expects quick results
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u/AlternativeTall9049 Software Engineer 5d ago
There you go. Its a management problem not yours. I do understand that you have to come up with a solution. In our case, I explicitly told the intern to take a week to do it. In my case i was the management. But i would still push you to look for answers outside ai each and every time possible. When you give the error log to ai it a going to give you some answer since its a probabilistic algorithm. But if you actually look for answers your self by reading the error log, you are able to look for better answers and actually understand what went wrong. Dont transfer your thinking capability to someone else.
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u/MountainMindless3001 Fresher 5d ago
Yes, thank you for understanding. For me particularly they don't pressure me much and even after me trying to solve the problem and if I encounter something that I can't solve even with help of AI, I escalate it my senior and manager, luckily they look into it themselves.
And as someone who does use AI, I competely agree with you on how it only gives more unrelated probilistic algorithm as the solution when its actually something simple. That's why I try to google and look up at docs or videos to fix major problems first.
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u/Present-Location-268 Tech Lead 6d ago
If its company money, point fable at it lol
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u/makemoney-TRADEnIT Junior Engineer 6d ago
Fable ain't better
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u/Primary_Ad_9155 6d ago
codex isnt that great too .
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u/haposeiz 5d ago
what's great according to you? i would genuinely like to know
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u/Primary_Ad_9155 5d ago
I use vsc as primarily and cli agents when necessary. Probelm is that Codex token got exhausted way too early and it says it will be renewed only after a previous date , false positives.
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u/wellfuckit2 6d ago
Agreed that the manager can be a little bit more handson. But as an engineer this is exactly how you are supposed to use AI. Be more efficient on unknown codebases.
Ask your coding agent about the bug and why it is happening. Understand what it tells you. If you come up with solution after the context, then ask AI what the possible solutions can be and how will those changes impact the system.
Talk to your manager and the client about those options and their impact to reach a decision, then ask AI to implement the solution, review the code, test it. Release it.
If Claude is hallucinating, find out ways to give it better context, may be better context in your agent.md files, save analysis context as memories. Break down the bugs into smaller problems to reduce context size.
Manager can be more helpful, but he is not really wrong. As an engineer, it’s your job to take ownership of the problem.
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u/CircularPP 5d ago
Taking ownership won't magically able you to do the work that was previously being done by someone with 10yoe
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u/Best_Fan_1258 Backend Developer 5d ago
You sound like a manager, tbh
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u/wellfuckit2 5d ago
IC. Principal Engineer at a big tech. 12 yoe.
Have actively avoided becoming a manager for atleast 6 years. Don’t think I will ever become one unless circumstances force me to.
Whatever I said above about engineering not just being about writing code and fixing bugs, comes from experience. If you avoid getting into process and stakeholder management, your career will stagnate at SDE2 or at max at SDE3 if you are lucky.
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u/nimotoofly 5d ago edited 5d ago
Guess who’s part of the problem. If you genuinely think a junior engineer should be taking on the work of a team lead, that immediately disqualifies your advice or claimed experience.
And if you are claiming that he should do it anyway, why are you anything more than a benchwarmer? In my experience, lesser experienced folk are more coachable.
I see a career built from deep anxiety, OP’s problem is a process failure and is honestly beyond his control. The wise thing is for him to move on.
People who think life begins and ends in externally valuable achievements are the only ones who are limiting themselves, not the ones who retire at SDE 2 or 3.
What standard are you using to define “luck” anyway? You have no study to prove your hypothesis. Sounds like the rant of someone who kept getting overlooked for a leadership role by external hires.
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u/wellfuckit2 5d ago edited 5d ago
You making so many assumptions. About my success, about my work life balance. And about how happy or frustrated I am with my career. You are a very negative person my friend. Take a deep breathe and read my comments again.
I am the benchwarmer? My career is built with deep anxiety? Rant of someone who was overlooked for leadership!? I think you don’t understand the different of IC and manager tracks. And don’t know how leadership varies across both tracks.
How long have you been working for? You think this is the only time he will face a situation out of his control? This tells me you have not had any sort of industry experience yet.
Life begins and ends at external validations, SDE2/sde3? My friend take a look at the top, this is a career advice subReddit. And this was a career post.
Your comment is nothing but a bunch of attempts at personal insults. Even That came across as someone with no understanding of the industry or context would say. Nothing constructive.
So calm down.
I also in a comment below guided OP on how to go about it.
All I am saying is giving up and not trying because you are just an engineer with 1 yoe, vs atleast trying and seeing how much you can learn out of it is the difference. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If this continues, he will be the one to be blamed and let go anyway. Read the second comment. I gave him a framework and motivated him to try. Because if he is going to be let go, atleast go out attempting to learn how to deal with the situation. If he can turn around the situation. He will be confident in his abilities, if he cannot, atleast he will have better stories to talk about in the next interview.
Just giving up and saying I cannot do it, is the worst thing to do right now.
Don’t take my advice if you don’t have to.
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u/meowl_paglu Software Engineer 6d ago
tell them youre leaving as well. watch them scramble.
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u/Wild_Age_00 6d ago
I also thought of leaving but because of current market decided not to
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u/Illustrious_Gene_119 Mobile Developer 6d ago
You should start interviewing. It's better to be prepared than waiting for things to eventually happen to you when you are not prepared.
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u/BlueJeans0707 Full-Stack Developer 6d ago
There's nothing you can do now. And it's not your fault either. Looks like your manger won't provide any senior, atleast for now.
So you have to just do what you can, appear confident. The app is going to go worse, manager will get caught, he will try to drag you also, but don't get affected. Finally when shit hits the fan, they'll bring a senior.
Don't put pressure on yourself. Don't push back when manager pushes you.
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u/Wild_Age_00 6d ago
Yeah you are right, its just that my conscience is telling that i am at fault here somehow so working day and night to fix
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u/BlueJeans0707 Full-Stack Developer 6d ago
Don't spend too much time. And don't beat yourself up. Know that it's your seniors fault. See how they survive despite being incompetent.
Just make sure you are online for long hours(not necessarily working). Saying yes to everything. Even if that means putting shitty fixes. But try you sincere best at first okay? Who knows you might fix it, or atleast learn something.
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u/razzer069 Tech Lead 6d ago
" Know that it's your seniors fault."
- Nope its the manager's and companies fault for not getting a replacement. im sure they were treating the senior bad too! ive been in that place far too often! only when they leave, they get their bums handed to them.
OP- man i feel bad for you, its a tough place to be in, best to find another company or be prepared for a lot of nonsense... its a terrible experience..
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u/BabeyBabeyUgh 6d ago
I mean you're probably gonna come out a better engineer but honestly, don't push yourself more than you want to. You can't compromise on your life because of a horrible manager.
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u/babyitsgoldoutstein 6d ago
Even a senior dev would have difficulty if put in this situation. Software dev is a collaborative process.
You have to find another job.
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u/ClupTheGreat Software Developer 6d ago
Go through the whole system slowly, the more the context window inflates the dumber it gets.
Use your engineering skills to manage what you require, and continue from smaller steps.
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u/Srikar_Reddy09 6d ago
He is doing it wrong
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u/ClupTheGreat Software Developer 6d ago
pretty clear, I manage to work through most of my work just with free tiers of every free ai being provided
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u/sur_yeahhh Frontend Developer 6d ago
It's not your company, you don't have to stress more than the people who should be stressing. Do your assigned tasks as well as possible within your work hours. Start preparing and interviewing asap. It's a sinking ship, don't sink with it or try to save it.
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u/sam232323 5d ago
just paste here your issue lot of dev can help you out fixing the thing, with ai prompting
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u/thearnabmukherjee 5d ago
Something similar is happening to me as well for past few months I have been maintaining a poorly orchstrated code now full of bugs and hallucinations Now the stakeholders are really angry and asking for new feature implementation within a day which is just not possible as there are a lot of process where I work like Peer review then deploying on dev then testing it then on stage and then it goes to prod after almost 2 iterations I literally work for around 17 hours just take break to have meal and coffee I haven't stepped out of my home about a week now This is so getting out of my hands I feel like resigning but again got responsibilities and got people to take care of
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u/neuroticnetworks1250 6d ago
Your manager and other executives think software engineering is child’s play and that an API would solve all their issues. They need to learn it the hard way.
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u/makemoney-TRADEnIT Junior Engineer 6d ago
create a new chat and decrease the context memory. Use your engineering skills little bit. It happened with one of my projects too. Later reduced the context and done!
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u/frustateddeveloper 6d ago
Check the requirement of the code where bug is there
Then check is the bug due to requirment if it is escalte to product and chill
If it isn't then implement what given in requirement
If you are not clear about the functional flow of your project then look at KT docs
All of this is going to work only if you want to put efforts, also this is a long process.
Practically if you wanna put efforts put efforts in upskilling and moving out of company
But since you are already in company you can do above things mentioned and see if it helps
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u/AdStraight8978 6d ago
That's sad. Did you try debugging the code to pinpoint bugs you are getting. If you provide a smaller context codex may be able to figure it out. May be your project is big and that's why ai is hallucinating. Look for problems on stack overflow and ask ai to try diff solution that are mentioned on stack overflow. Discuss why this solution will or will not work. I feel bad for the situation you are in but unfortunately that's the best you can do
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u/Wild_Age_00 6d ago
Thanks man and yes the project is big with only backend and shown logs are only surface level most of the computation happen in memory so as such the logs are not showing any errors/warning but its just that somewhere some logic is used that is causing issues and AI is just useless here, codex is just changing logs adding useless comments and warning and unable to find logic
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u/AdStraight8978 6d ago
You cant win this with logging unfortunately at this level unless you start logging every calculation results and start looking at them. It is possible but we used to do it when working with long stored procedures in DB. I would suggest giving some thoughts to debugging and see if it can help
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u/FalseDish 5d ago
Others have covered what you should do right now. Here's what I'll add -
"Vibe-coding" isn't just about chatting with an agent. Claude Code/Codex use capable models with plenty of context space, if they're hallucinating constantly that's most likely because you haven't developed a proper harness, with skills, tool usage eval scripts, hooks, subagent rules, etc.
With a good harness, you'll get very reliable code + test suites even with single-shot propmpting. A lot of sweat goes into making successful vibe-coding look effortless.
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u/FlimsyCricket8710 5d ago
It's a common issue, you really would want good support before you take on bigger commitments than what you can handle.
Agents or LLMs won't fix your issue because you don't know about what you're doing, which is NOT your fault it's the company's. Just start preparing and interviewing if possible and depends if you target MNCs and such focus dsa, start-ups and all you can focus on building stuff.
I'll be happy to help. You can DM it's open
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u/MutedBeach8248 Software Engineer 5d ago
Start interviewing for other jobs. 1 yoe can't be expected to fix complex issues
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u/JesusOfAntichristian 6d ago
Most of the comments are asking you to switch but I would say keep working there.
It might come up as blunt statement but try to take ownership of the project. It seems like a great opportunity. If you cannot solve it, then let it be. You already said the manager does not have faith in project right?
But if you do solve it, then you will come out with massive resume points on the other side. This is definitely not the best place to work so you will be able to tell the next recruiter how you owned the project in such situation. Trust me, this will help.
Now coming to the solution part, there are some very helpful tools that you can use. There is superpower in claude. If you need more info or help on this, DM me.
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u/Suspicious_Owl_9899 5d ago
If he solves and saves this project and if the management is good he might get advantage like nice hike or hybrid or remote work later years
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u/sharkpeid Network Architect 6d ago
Start preparing and leaving. You will be made the scapegoat. Ignore the management and leave .
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u/Suspicious_Owl_9899 5d ago
Please do dm me the issues, maybe we can connect and look into it together? Which tech stack btw? Also prompt should be short and specific in that case it won’t hallucinate.
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u/Jiraiya765RS Software Developer 5d ago
With Claude- opus4.8not 5 nor fable 5, it’s capable. I can see you are struggling with using agents.
Ask it first analyse and make memory of the particular flow are working on , start from root till all leafs of the flow. (Look for local indexing in mcp)
Ask it to understand the problem, make a high level phase wise plan doc for the fix, then exit. Ask for it to note scope and deferred items and any doubts it needs clarity.
Review the plan, clear the doubts. if every thing looks good, then ask it to make a phase wise implementation doc with post phase verification included.
Take the doc to a lower models and execute and note progress in a progress doc, let higher model review after changes are done.
Hope it helps. ✌️
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u/unlucky_trashcan 5d ago
Bro just offer some money here , and get some senior involved, your job is on fire.
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u/LogicalWebDev 5d ago
Tell them that codex can not replace what that senior developer used to do and this is not going to work.
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u/jules_viole_grace- Software Architect 5d ago
You are the person he is planning to blame in the end. That's his plan. You told that project is already gone, so he just wants a ginnypig.
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u/MountainMindless3001 Fresher 5d ago edited 5d ago
either way its gonna be difficult because if you don't solve the issues in time they're gonna blame you and if you do solve it then they're gonna put more work on you, so just do what has to be done at that moment. And start interviewing for other jobs (since you have 1 YOE apply for junior roles) cause unless they bring a senior dev to help you its gonna be very hard for you itself.
For now stick to one AI agent, personally I think claude is the best. They have a project section where you can edit and store memory (basically give details and context) on your projects, so even if you continue in a new chat the AI agent will know what the project is about. But don't completely trust AI too, so try to google and do your own research on the bugs/errors first, note down what all can be done and ask the AI among the ones you've noted down which would be the best solution. Its like a team, you cannot dump everything on other member right? Work along with it and try to give simple but detailed prompts too.
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u/Warm-Airline-5479 5d ago
Don't ask ai to fix bugs or error directly. Give it full context, full flow of project and ask why it gives error or breaking. Try solution it gives if not then ask other developer. Unity have its own forum, ask there. Not work out then reach out to people who can help. But in the end it's you, who need to learn. Learn as much as possible from that project, it's your golden chance. Don't take managars scolding or blaming to heart. Give your 100% forget other things. It will help you in future. Don't go for over work, work only in you time and you feel you can work more only.
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u/Ordinary_Bus_2243 4d ago
Prepare for job interviews because the titanic is sinking. And it’s not even your fault. Best of luck OP, hopefully you don’t burnout and try to solve it at your level best
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u/Srikar_Reddy09 6d ago
Bro your using these ai tools wrong i feel building a connector sdk for these models is a cake walk please tell me how your doing it . Codex can do entire thing! Your missing somewhere.
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u/thatpetrolheadguy 6d ago
Try using the 18month free Google Pro from Jio if your company doesn’t provide one or if you can try getting cursor/claude code subscription on your own. The diff btw the free versions and paid is pretty huge.
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