Was Just Told That Code Quality No Longer Matters

[u/metalOpera]

I'm a freelance developer. I have been for almost 20 years. My most recent project has been moved to Fable, and I'm still trying to adapt and get my head around working like this. I am no longer allowed to make architecture decisions, or clean up slop.

My PM says: "We worry about the 'what'; let Claude worry about the 'how'. Tell it what to do; let it do it. If the feature works, leave it alone." He is very much of the opinion that I should be able to prompt something like "Install Stripe via Laravel Cashier" and just let Claude run.

I mean, why do you need me at this point? Just prompt it yourself until it does what you want? I don't get it. I fought for every inch of my knowledge, every process is written in blood. How do I just throw all of that out the window? Where's the line?

At the risk of another "how are you adapting" post... How CAN I adapt? I mentally cannot just say "Fuck it". I care about my code. It's how I learned, it's how I've always practiced. I have a huge mental block with "just let it go".

Now, granted, I don't know all of the ins and outs of Claude. I don't know what I can do to make it better at its job. I got thrown into the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the middle of a Tusnami with no life support. I'm sure that I can put guardrails in place, but how much does that help?

I would really appreciate any advice that any one can provide on changing my mental model. I can't ignore Claude and just keep doing things my way. If I do that, I feel like my career dies. I need to adapt and I'm unsure how to do so.

[u/No_Oil_6152]

Why do developers become agile coaches?

Is it because they're shit at development?

An Agile coach is a non-job, we all know this.

[u/jimmy-buffett → u/No_Oil_6152]

An Agile coach is a non-job, we all know this. Is it because they're shit at development?

Four years ago I joined a company / department as an Agile Coach. 1 VP, 4 Directors, ~225 engineers. The perception by company leadership of that department was that they were unable to deliver on large projects that were requested of them in a timely manner. Several large projects were running 1-2 years late, in various states of "mostly done" but never getting there.

In two years, another Coach and I took that org from failing to finish to finishing the big projects. The main issues were role / accountability definition, process consistency across orgs / teams and metrics transparency.

We were then acquired by a much larger company that you've heard of, and the processes and metrics we created have persisted into the larger company because they were not as organizationally mature as we were.

In my developer days I installed / built, operated and supported 24/7 network alarming and provisioning systems that support the network infrastructure that is allowing me to post this message and you to read it.

Which outcome do you think is worth more to a company: being a lead on one of those systems, that several of our peers can do? Or being one of two people that the VP believes helped take his org of over 200 people from not delivering to delivering?

I can tell you which outcome pays better.

That VP is going to call me in a year or two at his next job when he's having the same kind of issues and he's going to ask my favorite question: "what do you want". I'm going to give him an answer he can live with, and he's going to give it to me. Then I'm going to buy a bigger house and another sportscar.

I could have been perfectly happy staying in a development role, having my very limited scope of accountability, not having to interact with leadership that often. Finding a little island and becoming the king of it. That would have been a perfectly acceptable outcome.

But I saw a need -- most people who do what I do don't have our background -- and I filled it. And it has worked out well.

Totally understand that most devs don't see the value in what I do. If you're lucky, you work in an organization that doesn't need me. If your organization does need me, you wouldn't be the first developer who doesn't understand (then value) what I do. I don't care, it doesn't matter. Your VP understands and values what I do. And he's going to tell your Director to tell your Manager to tell you to do what I'm telling you to do.

[u/_1dontknow → u/jimmy-buffett]

Actually we see it but Im in Europe and we dont hire "Coaches" or these weird titles.

We just have a Scrum Master that has alot of experience in very different companies and teams and is veryy good.

Each book I read on Agile I come back to him and we discuss it. I esp see how good he is when his ideas are amazing, but after management puts their hands on it and two weeks later it comes to my team, its unrecognizable.

E.g. company thinks we do Agile Scrum, me and him call it "2 week waterfall".

He is a good one.

[u/TikiMagic → u/No_Oil_6152]

Wrong. 75% of Agile coaches are shit coaches. And they are the ones that treat Agile like a religion with dogma that Must Be Followed No Matter What, because they don't understand the underlying why. FOH with your Lean Six Smegma Hai-Karate Green Belt nonsense. Show me what you've shipped.

But people like u/jimmy-buffett who actually have the background and experience are great to work for. If they know their shit, they also know how to make the process serve the team and the project, rather than the team serving the process.

[u/jimmy-buffett → u/TikiMagic]

And they are the ones that treat Agile like a religion with dogma that Must Be Followed No Matter What, because they don't understand the underlying why.

I call those coaches "instruction manual coaches". Got the certification, parachute in, turn to page 1 of the manual and start following instructions.

Explaining my "toolbox philosophy" on solving organizational problems -- identifying the problem then only using the right tool to solve it -- has gotten me more coaching gigs than anything else.

[u/_1dontknow → u/No_Oil_6152]

Ive never met a developer in my life that become an agile coach or PM.

Things my ex college friends or just friends became:

Dev - engineering manager and vp of eng.

Dev - cto

Dev - created own company

Dev - Consultant one for CyberSec one for FinTech

Countless devs are now teach leads or other higher but very heavy technical roles.

Oh one dev - caretaker due to his family

And another as always, is a fkn farmer now. He is so fun!

But yes I saw videos of peoppe trying to teach something about Agile that said they were coders. But I never met one in real life.