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Posted by yodsanklai 2 days ago

Ask HN: AI has changed my job for the worse

In the span of a few months, my job has completely changed. Most of the code in my team is now written by agents. And most of the focus of my team is to integrate agents in our products.

I'm not interested in the products we're supposed to build, and I don't like the way we're building them. Code quality has suddenly became irrelevant, and you have to keep up with everybody who ship twice as much code as before.

At the same time, there's more pressure on SWEs to deliver as layoffs are looming. I think leadership really believes they'll be able to save a lot by ultimately getting rid of all of us.

I'm not sure what to do at that stage but I'm pretty miserable. It's crazy that this occurred so fast.

25 points | 40 commentspage 2
journal 2 days ago|
be the best at using llm and do talks how to use them get noticed and stay hired.
MonaroVXR 2 days ago||
This is only if people believe you
kypro 1 day ago||
The whole point of AI is that you don't need to be the best at anything... You outsource knowledge to AI. AI is an automation tool for knowledge work, you can't secure your career by moving into another form of knowledge work – especially not one with an even lower barrier to entry.

If AI is going to replace a programmers role, it will 100% replace any LLM expert / LLM prompter role.

If today:

Come up with some requirements -> programmer -> app

Why would the future be:

Come up with some requirements -> LLM expert -> app

Instead of:

Come up with some requirements -> app

journal 7 hours ago||
that's like saying today we can fly so tomorrow we can teleport is what you're saying. i wouldn't be so quick to draw conclusions.
sexyman48 2 days ago||
You put a manual bookkeeper out of a job. What comes around goes around?
JustExAWS 2 days ago||
Manual bookkeepers were put out of a job in the 1980s with VisiCalc
y0eswddl 2 days ago||
How. How is a software engineer building saas applications in 2025 replacing a manual bookkeeper?
journal 2 days ago|||
manual bookkeeper? a quickbooks user? or pen and paper? either way, it's not like any of you are manually entering debits and credits regularly into a journal like they have done forever before computers, databases, and software. we're not losing jobs because of ai but because we're in the middle of switching gas tanks. just a low energy production is causing everyone to panic and blame it on ai. i have so much work i wish i had the money to hire people. they're all just waiting for things to get cheaper. it's not like they don't have enough money to survive indefinitely, if they can make 90mil in two years vs 10mil now, the math is simple, just wait.
andrei_says_ 1 day ago||
Is writing code a true equivalent of data entry?
add-sub-mul-div 2 days ago|||
It's just the typical midwit argument that one kind of automation is the same as any other. Best to ignore it.
lschueller 2 days ago||
I feel your worries, but sooner or later sde roles will adjust to the new requirements and tools. If a companies business model is at risk by an evolving technology or innovation, it wasn't very good after all. Nonetheless, the skills are still essential to good products imho
dudewhocodes 2 days ago||
Everyone in the field seems to be in deep FOMO driven by the other guys also being in a state of FOMO. This creates chaos, delusion and a stressful environment where things are irrational.

I understand your thoughts, we have to keep pushing through this and saner heads will prevail.

paulcole 2 days ago||
There’s tons of jobs in the world. Go get a different one if you’re that miserable?

You’ll probably find something to hate about that new job, too.

keiferski 2 days ago||
Not to be flippant, but - be glad you’re not a writer, because you might not have a job at all.
hshdhdhehd 2 days ago||
There are more writing jobs. Aka prompt engineers.
keiferski 2 days ago||
No, not really. There is no such position, writing is just more becoming a part of a marketer’s job.
red-iron-pine 1 day ago||
what is the average marketer going to do that AI can't?

the LLM will parse tweets and emails and whatever else and can write it in a perfect, localized vernacular for whichever demographic you want to sell to.

and it can do it in real-time, 24/7

at this point you're mostly a bot-herder or social-media-tool admin; the tools are doing the thinking.

helicone 1 day ago|||
well, sonny, ur paw's had a long day at the farm

the cursor-bots needed wranglin' after'n they got into the source code for node.js.

yep, the linter's on the fritz now, too. i think ol' Jedadiah musta convinced it to act like jar-jar binks. well that jokester just cost us one. too bad we' can't fire'em. he's the only one knows how to turn the servers on.

i'm gonna go sit on the porch and watch tiktoks for the rest of the night. you be a good boy and tell the OpenRoomba to do its chores.

keiferski 1 day ago|||
yeah, that's not really how marketing works.

Even if it did work that way, the best it gets you is the same outcome as everyone else following the same playbook. Which it not exactly a winning formula for a marketing strategy.

andrei_says_ 1 day ago||
For people who care about quantity of words, maybe.

For writing as an expression of meaningful thinking, and more so, as a tool for arriving at coherent understanding and thinking (the one that’d eventually produce the writing)… not so much.

AI slop is slop.

keiferski 1 day ago||
Of course I agree with you, but do you think the average middle manager making hiring/firing decisions cares about this? All they see is someone expensive that ChatGPT can replace.
bitbasher 2 days ago||
This too shall pass.
yincong0822 2 days ago||
find a project on github and contribute it!
red-iron-pine 1 day ago||
name and shame, so that I can get off of their products ASAP.

vibe code is going to crash those apps and I want to be away from them when it happens.

your job security is probably at risk already, so sharpen up that resume killer -- the market is rough right now.

sexyman48 1 day ago||
Oh that's a good idea. Put OP's severance check at risk by being fired for cause.
helicone 1 day ago||
dude it's like all of them now. even Google is writing most of its code with AI these days.
sherinjosephroy 1 day ago|
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