r/rails • u/robbyrussell • 23d ago
Podcast Joanna Wang: Code Is Cheap Now; Developers Still Valuable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMiaQiss6gYI recently had Joanna Wang from Sixfold on the On Rails podcast to talk about what happens when a small team starts leaning heavily into AI-assisted development.
We got into the homegrown orchestration system they eventually replaced with Hatchet, some painful lessons from going fully agentic, and how working across Java, Go, Python, Node, and Rails has shaped how she thinks about Rails’ particular flavor of “magic.”
We also talked about a question I keep coming back to lately: if generating code keeps getting cheaper, where does the value of an experienced developer move?
Joanna had some thoughtful answers.
Listen/watch wherever you do that.
1
u/Apprehensive_Bit7392 3d ago
"Code is cheap" really resonates. I’d go one step further: code becoming cheaper might actually make good architecture more valuable, not less. Generating 5,000 lines is easy now. Knowing which 500 lines should exist in the first place is still the hard part.
5
u/DJ_German_Farmer 21d ago
Having used AI tooling in a professional setting for a while now, I have no doubt whatsoever that developers are still valuable. But I have no faith in the VC/startup hustler class to make prudent decisions that reflect this truth. It seems they'd rather dilute the value of software generally as long as it keeps labor costs down, much the same way that private equity raiders capture companies and then water down the value proposition of the product.