alt Hacker NewsI don't understand what the value proposition of such an employee is. If all you're doing is acting as a meat proxy between your manager and your AI, why does your role even exist? Why shouldn't your superiors just prompt the AI directly?
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> I don't understand what the value proposition of such an employee is.
Creating the correct prompts to address specific concerns and goals requires technical knowledge and problem solving skills, same as before LLMs. Now, there's less typing of the code. Ofc 40 file changes indicates management is failing, leaving little confidence they could prompt their way to intended features. Code storms should be a converted to a stacked pr on a feature branch, so it is reviewable with great confidence. These words describing these issues require a level of sophistication which will necessarily no longer be a people manager role. I think this kind of (nearly) codeless position is ahead of the curve, not behind.
The management cares more about "this dude ships things" than "this dude ships things that are maintainable".
Whether someone else will be left cleaning up the mess (I have been in that position) is a separate question.
What is the value proposition of the managers? In the old times, it was mostly managing the human aspects of development. At least in my experience, managers wouldn't know what to prompt, even if they could.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcIMIyQnOso
I couldnt not put this here. I have people skills.
I agree. Even in the era of LLMs, part of one’s job as a software developer is to understand the codebase and how it works and be able to fix bugs and add features without breaking other things in the process or compromising quality or security.
If you’re not doing that and just blindly committing whatever code the LLM generates without so much as glancing at it, you’re not adding any value and there’s a good chance that with a little initial guidance, the janitor could perform your prompt-jockeying about as well.