AI has changed my job for the worse

Question

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.

lschueller · Accepted Answer

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

sexyman48 · Answer

You put a manual bookkeeper out of a job. What comes around goes around?

y0eswddl · Answer

This seems to be par for the field rn. I would say learn the tools for now, do your best to ship code you like, release as many f*cks as you can about what you're building - especially if the product and majority of products belong to someone else, and start putting feelers out for something better to hopefully come along.It sucks SO much rn, but it seems the majority option is to grin and bear it for the time being and pray to whatever gods you believe in that we get back to something sane sooner than later

dudewhocodes · Answer

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 · Answer

There&rsquo;s tons of jobs in the world. Go get a different one if you&rsquo;re that miserable?You&rsquo;ll probably find something to hate about that new job, too.

journal · Answer

be the best at using llm and do talks how to use them get noticed and stay hired.

dannicou · Answer

It&rsquo;s understandable to feel this way &mdash; the shift happened incredibly fast, and a lot of teams weren&rsquo;t given time to adapt. Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to redefine what meaningful work looks like in this new environment.

sharts · Answer

Why aren&rsquo;t we replacing the executives who make the poor business decisions which lead to layoffs with AI agents?

bitbasher · Answer

This too shall pass.

yincong0822 · Answer

find a project on github and contribute it!

keiferski · Answer

Not to be flippant, but - be glad you&rsquo;re not a writer, because you might not have a job at all.

propablythrown · Answer

They won't get rid of all, but many of you will be let go for sure.

wreath · Answer

I feel the same way. Im on the job market (though still employed) and i can tell you my core skills have degraded since using LLMs last year or so where technical (non leetcode!) interviews are now more challenging to me since i forgot how to make all these small decisions (eg should this be a private class property or public).I decided to just disable codepilot and keep my skills sharp i know we will be called back to clean up the mess. Reminiscent of offshoring in the 2000s

hashkitly · Answer

You&rsquo;re not alone&mdash;many teams pivoted fast to agent-written code, and it can feel like craftsmanship no longer matters. A few concrete moves:- Have a candid 1:1: say you&rsquo;re misaligned with the process, but propose owning guardrails leadership cares about&mdash;reliability, security, test coverage, CI policies, prompt/eval hygiene. Suggest measuring outcomes beyond velocity: defect escape rate, change failure rate, MTTR, SLOs, incident cost. - Differentiate where agents are weak: ambiguous requirements, system design, debugging gnarly prod issues, performance tuning, threat modeling, compliance. Volunteer for those areas. - Use AI defensively: generate tests, fuzzers, benchmarks, docs, migrations; prune agent output; write prompts/evals to reduce rework and incidents. - Protect yourself: keep a brag doc with quantified impact, network for internal transfers, and quietly explore roles that still value rigor (fintech, healthcare, infra, aerospace, devtools). - Set a 60&ndash;90 day window. If nothing changes, execute an exit plan rather than burn out.It&rsquo;s okay to be disillusioned. Your edge now is owning quality, risk, and outcomes&mdash;things the org can&rsquo;t ignore even when throughput is cheap.

jf22 · Answer

I think LLMs can generate tons of production quality code if you put in the time. I do it every day. The output and productivity is amazing.I'm also really bored and hate that my job is writing specs and stupid prompts.

red-iron-pine · Answer

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.

AI has changed my job for the worse

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

You put a manual bookkeeper out of a job. What comes around goes around?

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.

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.

be the best at using llm and do talks how to use them get noticed and stay hired.

It’s understandable to feel this way — the shift happened incredibly fast, and a lot of teams weren’t given time to adapt. Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to redefine what meaningful work looks like in this new environment.

Why aren’t we replacing the executives who make the poor business decisions which lead to layoffs with AI agents?

This too shall pass.

find a project on github and contribute it!

Not to be flippant, but - be glad you’re not a writer, because you might not have a job at all.

They won't get rid of all, but many of you will be let go for sure.

I think LLMs can generate tons of production quality code if you put in the time. I do it every day. The output and productivity is amazing.
I'm also really bored and hate that my job is writing specs and stupid prompts.

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.

AI has changed my job for the worse

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

You put a manual bookkeeper out of a job. What comes around goes around?

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.

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.

be the best at using llm and do talks how to use them get noticed and stay hired.

It’s understandable to feel this way — the shift happened incredibly fast, and a lot of teams weren’t given time to adapt. Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to redefine what meaningful work looks like in this new environment.

Why aren’t we replacing the executives who make the poor business decisions which lead to layoffs with AI agents?

This too shall pass.

find a project on github and contribute it!

Not to be flippant, but - be glad you’re not a writer, because you might not have a job at all.

They won't get rid of all, but many of you will be let go for sure.

I think LLMs can generate tons of production quality code if you put in the time. I do it every day. The output and productivity is amazing.I'm also really bored and hate that my job is writing specs and stupid prompts.

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.

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.

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.

I think LLMs can generate tons of production quality code if you put in the time. I do it every day. The output and productivity is amazing.
I'm also really bored and hate that my job is writing specs and stupid prompts.

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.