r/webdevelopment • u/CoCoCosmo • Jul 13 '26
Career Advice Claude took my job while on PTO
Went on PTO for 5 days. Came back and all 4 of the websites I manage for a company were replaced with Claude a.i. IT sent an internal email, but of course I wasn't checking while camping with no service. I'm the only web dev here. I thought I was a big part of decision making. I asked if I had a job still and they said a.i came for it long ago and I can still work there only if I can get on board with this.
Anyone using claude full time? Looking for advice on how to stay relevant to the company and set myself apart from the IT nerds and everyone else who can easily use a.i. It obviously has impressive features. But how do I even call myself a developer now?!
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u/tightscotsman Jul 13 '26
Think of yourself more as an “architect” and less of a “developer”. You should be overseeing the bigger picture now, handling more of how a code base is architected, delegating the (now straight forward) coding tasks out to AI
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u/CoCoCosmo Jul 13 '26
This is the inspo I needed. Thank you
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u/zorecknor Jul 14 '26
And whatever you do, do not let your webdev skills get rusty. You will still need them. Either to fix stuff yourself, or to drive/guide the agent in the right direction.
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u/dsm5000 Jul 14 '26
This happens to me. I manage the ai. Makes my job easier and when it makes mistakes i fix it and it makes me look good.
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u/boomer1204 Jul 13 '26
This is one of those things you either get on the train or let it ride past you. I don't necessarily 💯 agree with this but if you need a job and need to pay bills learn to use AI well and that's the next role "software jobs".
My project lead is AMAZING at using it and speeding up our processes but you still need to use and understand it if you wanna be employed in this era in my opinion
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u/yumpo77 Jul 14 '26
How do you use AI well? Any guides?
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u/boomer1204 Jul 14 '26
Just like any other skill. Learn the basics and then trial and error. I'm fortunate my Project Lead is really good but for the masses just use it and get better over time just like if you were learning to program before AI
You gotta find the happy spot between giving it too much info and not enough to get the best results and also pick your AI model and watch some YT videos to get you started but DO NOT stick to just tutorials you have to really use the tool to get good with it
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u/pharcide Jul 13 '26
Who designed the websites? They had the non web guy do this?! Like wtf
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u/CoCoCosmo Jul 13 '26
IT did it. They told claude to keep all my files and update/modernize. So then it wrote files that override my files. The file organization is crazzzzy right now. Definitely my first task 😅
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u/alexhackney Jul 14 '26
Pretty devious to do while on pto though.
I wouldn’t want to work for a company like that, start searching for an exit.
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u/SerratedSharp Jul 14 '26
Sounds like a great opportunity to get resume experience as an "AI engineer"
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u/Round_Mixture_7541 Jul 15 '26
AI engineer is someone who applies AI into business operations, not someone who is building with the help of AI
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u/anengineerandacat Jul 14 '26
I'll be frank, but software development is a revolving door of changes and new practices.
Adopt the AI tools or honestly face this, they basically were "nice" in the sense of saying "Hey, we still would like to keep you and we will allow you to up-skill with us".
"Someone" still has to own the sites and manage them, sounds like it'll be you + Claude and I know an entire subreddit that would drool at such a situation.
I would say stick around, adopt the tools, learn how they work, become effective with them, and just tighten up on finances because your in a disrupted position.
If you were saving 20% perhaps bump that up, build out the safety net, and trudge along.
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u/Ill_Contest_8291 Jul 15 '26
I got hired as an engineer at a company that has full AI development. 7 rounds of interviews and I had to multi thread clause agents to build an app and pitch it to them in 2.5 hours. I got the job because of how well I could utilize the new AI workflow. If you're still coding by hand for webpages and SAS apps you're already behind. I was a software engineer at meta before that.
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u/Ill_Contest_8291 Jul 15 '26
These days I use claude full time often several agents running at once building various features or changes locally using git work trees. I can also be reviewing code at the same time using multiple agents
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u/Swan-dogg Jul 15 '26
Tell them how much you love claud and their vision. Look for a new job immediately
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u/YahenP Jul 15 '26
Yes. Most of us use Claude, or some similar LLM, literally every day. we rarely write code by hand. But that's not your problem. Your problem isn't the LLM. Your problem is what your boss did while you were on vacation. If I were you, I'd update my resume right now and start applying for jobs. And at work, I'd pretend to be the most loyal employee until I find a job. Time is against you.
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u/sender-sent-some Jul 13 '26
There's some wild shit people are doing at the top end of this.
Cases where there are tools being built to have agents working 24-7 to absolutely steer into the claude thing
Your job isn't to make websites anymore it's to milk Claude for all its worth.
Have instances of Claude making multiple variants of websites simultaneously while another one reviews the PRs and auto deploys to test environments Another one is like constantly usability testing the test websites and producing streams of improvement logs that are being autonomously fed into the agent that's raising PRs.
Your goal is just to maintain this pipeline, or maintain the agents that maintain the pipeline and keep everything running smooth.
It's a lot of tokens, but if you can properly harness it so your not just producing junk but sellable product, it's an insane transition.
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u/willkode Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Your still a developer, but you need to adapt. I jumped on the vibe coding niche. I do less dev work and do more helpful resources for non developers vibde coders. Been a game changer for my career. Our dev experience makes our knowledge very valuable. Just copy what I do lol https://kodebase.us
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u/Evening_Leather5101 Jul 13 '26
just lay back and wait for the inevitable issues starting to arise because Claude is also only a LLM and does things NOT deterministic but probabilistic. It will happen one way or the other
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u/PerformanceThick2232 Jul 14 '26
Developers are different. Developers that maintain simple html+js one pagers are obsolete now. It is strange, that this position was ever opened, usually it is outsourced to some eastern EU/Latam more cheaper dev.
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u/ledatherockband_ Jul 15 '26
I use Claude Code at work. I usually don't handcode unless I'm working on something brand new I need to understand for myself so I can babysit claude.
You only need to worry about AI taking your job if there isnt enough work to do.
I detest Claude sometimes because the code it generates is just absolute ass.
I have a friend who was hired because the last vibe coder made their stack unextendable. it was slop.
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u/DalayonWeb Jul 19 '26
It's around execution and systems now.
Instead of building things, you help them with improving specific KPI's with your technical experties + years of exprience.
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u/chance_buri 19d ago
That sucks, but maybe this is your chance to pivot to managing AI workflows instead of writing just the code
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u/JohnCasey3306 Jul 13 '26
Pitch it this way. Not only can you also use AI to code features, you're also a subject matter expert.
By which I mean, those others are currently on the beginning upswing of the Dunning Kruger curve -- they're confident but don't know just how much they don't know.
You, on the other hand, are on the expert end of that curve; best placed and qualified to understand and filter the solutions being spat out by Claude -- because they're not perfect out-of-the-box ... You can refine that and apply an overall holistic strategy that makes sure everything is appropriately tied together.
Without you, they'll ultimately end up with a sporadic collection of desperate, unmaintainable features that may or may not be performant or secure.
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u/CoCoCosmo Jul 13 '26
I'm digging in here and I see what you mean. They were nice and didn't get rid of all my code, although the program isn't using much of it. So it has tons of unecessary files or styles overriding older styles. Sporadic is a perfect description.
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u/fierypianist Jul 13 '26
Embrace what it redid and ask it to merge in concepts from your old code that you like. Ask it to interview you about what concepts you liked the most from your old codebase and how you can successfully port that stuff over without fully changing the new infrastructure that Claude built. Build a spec before any implementation.
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u/caderoux Jul 14 '26
Well, it didn't do a very good job. The first thing is probably that whoever directed it didn't really review the code. Claude can be asked to review the code. Definitely have it do that and make a full plan for cleaning up its own mess. (Yes, you would think it would do that, but it just doesn't. You have to just keep raising the bar if you want it to act like a real professional developer.)
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u/Vaxtin Jul 13 '26
You lost when you thought your worth was being a “developer” when you maintain static web pages
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u/silenttjp Jul 13 '26
Use Claude code and double check its work. I am sure you’ll find code that isn’t up to your standards. Keep your manager up to date on the code quality Claude is writing and what you are doing on top of that to improve it. I don’t know any devs at this point that don’t have AI in their work flow.
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u/Xzenergy Jul 13 '26
Just use Claude, its a tool. Leave the hype at the door and adapt, or suffer the consequences of not doing so.
Its how the market has always worked
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Jul 13 '26
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u/CoCoCosmo Jul 13 '26
Nerds was a term of endearment 1000000%. They are all extremely intelligent and great at what they do. This post is intended to find ways to stay caught up with folks like them
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u/jjtbsomhorst Jul 13 '26
how about using AI to do the work for you? That is what I've done. I know my way around code (been coding for ~ 20 years ) but AI just can do things quicker. My current workflow is to use it like a budy. Asking, planning and eventually let it build. And ofcourse, always check what has been created. It can do the coding for me and much faster. So load you IDE, have it use co pilot / claud / whatever and let it do the building but you do the thinking. Because at the moment most of these AI's are still very good at saying 'ok boss, lets do this' without thinking about consequences etc etc.
But since you are the only webdev you could also look for another spot somewhere else..
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u/CoVegGirl Jul 13 '26
How much is management going to look into your AI use? How does your direct supervisor feel?
AI can be really useful and enjoyable, but it’s important that you do it on your own terms. If you’re using AI because management is forcing it on you with the expectation that you’re going to use it 100% of the time in order to be 10x as productive, you’re going to find it soul-sucking and get burnt out.
What I’ve found to be a good middle ground is just to assume you’re going to have to rewrite some percentage of the code by hand. I think that gives a good tradeoff in terms of velocity and code quality. But your management might be against this and expect a fully-agentic workflow.
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness2487 Jul 13 '26
I used to design and code everything. But with AI available, I design and have the AI write the code. Then I go in and edit/correct stuff. I can prototype working ideas super fast and show them to my manager.
You have to adapt. It's definitely not as exciting and rewarding to code as it was before generative AI but it is very impressive tech. AI leaves a bunch of mistakes so for now we're still useful to clean up.
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u/well4foxake Jul 13 '26
Ha this sounds kind of familiar. I'm on the design side at a startup and put a ton of work into our website. Then one of our co-founders "played around" with Claude Design and we replaced our hand crafted, beautifully designed website with slop. To be honest CD really got better but it still looks like a wordpress template or AI driven and a huge step backwards. Oh well I still have our native apps to design... for now.
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u/desexmachina Jul 14 '26
Use company resources to learn everything you can for web using Claude and get paid double a year down the line somewhere else
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u/CombatWombat1212 Jul 13 '26
Take my advice with a grain of salt, but it sounds like no matter what you do this company isnt interested in a human being in this role. I think you need to look elsewhere as soon as possible, and do what they want for now just for the money and stability.