logoalt Hacker News

ipsod • today at 12:56 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

I'm paid to produce software that has features and works.

Nobody cares how I get there or how ugly the code is. They care how fast I can do it and how reliable the software is.

I look at code sometimes, in down time, to see what's been done terribly by AI, and to fix it and hopefully fix the process so that things don't get done terribly in that particular way in the future.


Replies

poncho_romero • today at 1:12 PM

It's not about "how ugly the code is". Poor solutions heaped on top of poor solutions can result in a system with real users and intractable issues. I'm all for AI, but not reviewing the code seems likely to cause issues long term.

➕ show 1 reply
swozey • today at 1:11 PM

Whats your YOE, like when did you enter tech as a SWE?

This shouldn't be normalized for you yet unless you're at a faang pushing this at the edge and new to the field, cause this isn't what we used to do 2 years ago.

If you're happy with the ai slop $$$ job more power to you but that isn't the entire field and there used to be (and hopefully still are) good and fun engineering jobs.

Contrary to popular normie belief, no not everyone wants to work at the Metas and OpenAIs and for good reason.

edit: Guys a literal business owner writing code for his own business, christ, what a waste of my time. So instead of hiring actual engineers you try to make it sound like you're employed as a software engineer and your experience is remotely normal. You are the literal business owner not filling seats because you're using AI.

"I'm paid to just shut up and code, baby!"

Yeah, that isn't a real SWE job, bud, don't make comments like you're in the trenches.

➕ show 2 replies