Ask HN: Are the heaviest AI users of your team blowing past everyone else?

[ex-aws-dude]

As AI assisted coding can be pretty divisive some SEs don't use any of the tools and some use them heavily.

I'm curious to hear do you notice a difference in performance of team members using the tools vs not?

Are the ones using them blowing past the rest of the team in terms of features shipped, bugs fixed, productivity?

Are faster promotions/higher ratings going to these people?

[jb_hn]

I'd imagine there's a positive correlation between "uses AI" and productivity, but I expect that to be somewhat moderated by how "well" they use AI.

It's very easy to churn out code that isn't particularly additive (or in some cases, actively destructive), so adjusting for that would be important.

[kypro]

Business loves them, actual engineers hate them.

If you care about your career you should be one. If you care about engineering you might have other concerns.

[ipunchghosts]

Yes. I can tell who uses it and who doesn't. Also who is good at using it and who isn't.

[bear_with_me]

Are the people who are good at using it the same people who were good at what they did before AI? I'm kind of curious

[fullstick]

I'm my experience, yes. But on my team ai has helped the lowest performers. But it's allowed my best performers to build too much too fast.

[axegon_]

The key difference:

Heavy users: "this (works)|(doesn't work)|(is there)|(isn't there) and I have no idea why"

0 or near 0 usage: "this (works)|(doesn't work)|(is there)|(isn't there) and I know exactly why"

So to sum up: absolutely not. Heavy users drag the rest down when someone has to switch context and spend hours figuring out why something they "created" does not work, only to get aneurysm from atrocious code, dependency hell, practically 0 security and stupid decisions.