[bah9]

AI basically killed my joy for programming. I've been working as swe in bigtech for 8 years. I like learning stuff, actually coding stuff with my hands, gather information and understanding before implementing, polish my code. Thats all gone

Now I am just a monkey thats: 1) add enough context, description and harness to an agent 2) review ouput and repeat 1) if context is lacking

It was bottom to top: from understanding to implementation. You were the owner. Now it is top to bottom: get implementation first, try to get understanding later. Thinking is also delegated. "Think" nowadays is "reformulate,answer questions, add context, try again". This doest feels like I am doing the work, this feels like I am a limiting factor here

Another side effect is that any code now have 0 value. No one evaluating how you guided an agent, what decisions you took. People seeing your work and think "ye, I could vibe code that too with enough time" even if this is not true

And my work isn't css and html (with all respect). It is mostly high performance clusters, parallel computing, OS, low level, SOTA online llm inference etc

Now I am seriously considering blue collar job, as I have more joy building stuff with my hands than to be a passenger/context generator to an ai. I am not a business driven person, I don't really care how much money my company earns (sorry). I just like to solve technical puzzles and think hard

P.S. yes, there are corner cases ai can't do well: non trivial, highly specific algorithms and implementations; complex patches to gigantic multi domain proprietary code bases, but that's like 5% of my work

[simgt]

I'm in the same boat, weirdly I can't find colleagues or friends who share my point of view. It's always the same "I can do higher level thinking now" or "no it can't do X". You nailed it with the output having no value anymore.

I find some solace in electronics repair, sadly there isn't much money to make in that.

[bah9]

Ahh, famous "thinking", also known as "write couple more prompts, answer llms questions and combine results". Pretty exciting

[iugtmkbdfil834]

<< No one evaluating how you guided an agent, what decisions you took.

Oh, don't worry. That part is coming. It might be a cynical read, but the matured version of the field will have a ton of after the fact reviews ( especially in more regulated parts ) and you will hate it.

[qingcharles]

I'm the opposite. I've been coding for over 40 years, over 30 professionally, full-time. I've never enjoyed coding more than I do now with an LLM assistant. I'm getting more done, at a higher quality, faster. I get to talk through complex algorithms and strategy decisions quickly and insightfully. I couldn't be more thankful for these tools. That being said, we have a choice, and if people don't like AI, they don't need to use it.