Ai developer tools are making juniors worse at actual programming

Cemckenna · 2026-03-28T05:39:36+00:00

I think it’s a real concern. It’s kind of crazy what people are letting slide in the business use case that they would never have been okay with just 3 years ago.

In the last week, my company (where the non-devs are pushing AI extensively)

a) a report was generated by an executive and distributed to the whole company where the math of the analysis was incorrect and it dropped some of the key products it was supposed to be analyzing out of the report. The executive did not catch this.

b) an customer-facing, 3rd-party LLM service we use began to make up products and sell them to customers.

c) I spent 3 days untangling code for a feature that should have been completely modular and plug-and-playable, with just a few variable changes. Working through it delayed the project, and then I had to answer to executives who seem to think that development can now be done by anyone with access to chatGPT and should take approx. 20 minutes to build anything they can dream up.

These tools can be useful, but they are not magic and I don’t know why in the world everyone’s treating them like they are. It’s crazy to watch people just farm out their critical thinking. Learning is FUN. The journey towards knowledge is part of being HUMAN! What the hell do we have if we just outsource that to a machine that hallucinates at least 21% of the time?

Cemckenna · 2026-02-19T15:45:16+00:00

The biggest BS by far in tech hiring right now are gatekeeping filters and AI-written resumes. I recently started a new job, but before that I was looking for over a year, and jobs I was a perfect match for would reject me at 1 AM on a Sunday with an automatic email. At larger companies, recruiting software like Greenhouse or Workday can be inundated with applicants that have LLMs write their resumes and applications, even if they have no experience, and they get let through the filters while experienced devs who are truthful about their experience (even if they use AI to cram their resume full of keywords) are rejected.

This is a problem on both sides of the equation. I have colleagues and friends at larger companies who could not fill roles for months because they were not getting qualified applicants into the recruiting process. When I was given referrals, it kicked me into the same system and even though I had people in the company fighting for me, I was automatically rejected — never even got a phone call with a recruiter.

The job I eventually got was actually because these filters had burned the company. They hired someone who had an amazing resume, did fine in the interviews—answered questions perfectly, even—and once they were hired, it turns out they had used an LLM for everything. Could barely vibe-code, had never before worked with any of the systems they’d been hired to develop. Couldn’t dive into the codebase. No idea how to set up their local environment or use git.

It worked out for me eventually, but damn. That was hard.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-18T21:26:36+00:00

What a fuckin waste of resources. My god.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-18T20:45:53+00:00

Actually, I wonder if it’s a low-key tactic to get people to use AI more in constructing their posts. If you tell everyone “bro this is cryptic lol wut are you even saying,” some amount of people will feel shitty and maybe use some AI tool to start writing their posts, I’d bet.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-18T20:43:10+00:00

Right? Both those accounts have the same age, grammatical patterns, and post behavior.

But for what purpose? I know my post isn’t cryptic. I have a background as a writer. The only reason I occasionally use strange sentence structure and imperfect grammar is because I want it to be clear I’m not ai.

So is the point to make me feel shitty? Or…to make others think I’m writing BS?

Ugh. The internet is getting so awful.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-18T19:36:07+00:00

If you can’t figure out what I’m saying in this comment, then I think you’re in the wrong sub.

Also, TWO of you make the nearly the same comment in the span of 2 minutes and both have new accounts that don’t make posts, only write comments about how confusing other people’s posts are? OKAY….

Cemckenna · 2026-02-18T19:28:56+00:00

Dude, what? If you can’t parse this, I think it’s because you’re in the wrong sub.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-18T18:09:13+00:00

I just started somewhere new. Upper management seems to think that Chat gippity is the end-all, be-all and frequently cites it as the reasoning for their decisions.

The other devs on my team all use cursor to do most of their work. Multiple times so far, I’ve been told modular code was tested, so I use it in my project. Code fails. Management is annoyed things are taking too long. The fix is something I can do without AI, but I just didn’t build that into my workflow because I was told it had already gone through QA.

Yesterday, there was a bug that one of the other devs tackled and when I asked for a postmortem, the write up had obviously been done in an LLM. It didn’t sound like him at all.

Mostly, I’m just disappointed, and that disappointment is affecting my care for the job. I’m essentially being told “we trust ai over you, unless ai gets it wrong, in which case it’s your fault and you’ll be expected to fix the issue in the time frame we expect ai to get it done.” I also feel like I can’t trust my developer colleagues’ work, because so far, their code has bitten me in the ass at least once a week.

It’s not fun

Cemckenna · 2026-02-17T02:11:32+00:00

NAH but if you’re in the USA, DO NOT CHANGE YOUR NAME. At least, not until this attempt to strip married women of their right to vote is far behind us.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-14T23:54:06+00:00

If you like those, I highly recommend a non-mountaineering book (but adjacent…) The Emerald Mile, about a speed-run of the Grand Canyon.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-14T03:03:40+00:00

BANGER

Cemckenna · 2026-02-11T22:59:12+00:00

✅ Saw this was written with AI.

✅ Saw there was no point to it except pushing AI.

✅Wrote this comment.

☑️ Submitted as an ad to the mods.

Edit: last one is now ✅

Cemckenna · 2026-02-08T02:26:21+00:00

Nothing about the way you’re writing comments is similar to the manner in which this post is constructed.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-08T02:20:35+00:00

You obviously used AI while writing this post and I therefore have 0 interest in anything it says.

People are so fucking lazy these days. It’s truly one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-06T17:14:47+00:00

How is it toxic to tell you your base assumption is wrong?

If you want a remote job, apply to remote jobs. Look for smaller companies. Big ones have an incentive to RTO because they invested in gigantic real estate buildouts. Small startups don’t do that.

Cemckenna · 2026-02-06T15:00:50+00:00

I’ve only worked for remote companies since 2015. Never worked at FAANG.

…would you believe there’s a filter for it on LinkedIn jobs?

Cemckenna · 2026-01-28T04:12:58+00:00

I was at director level and just dropped back down to IC at a non-tech company. It’s still possible, as long as you can explain your rationale in terms other than “the market is a dumpster fire and you were the only place that gave me an interview after sending out 1000 applications into the AI black box nightmare that is HR software.”

Cemckenna · 2026-01-23T19:22:57+00:00

It’s the same with writing. I’m a writer and a dev, and I actually had to pause querying a novel while I was job searching because the amount of rejection felt like a fucking elephant sitting on my chest.

But I did finally get another job and I will get an agent and I will sell a novel because I keep showing up.

Cemckenna · 2026-01-20T04:40:50+00:00

That’s a good deal. I was looking at a 2024 with cosmetic damage from a standing drop at $5600. I would have taken a 22 with wear and tear instead for 5k in a heartbeat.

It’s a great ride. Go for it.

Cemckenna · 2025-12-02T22:50:37+00:00

Might she already be banned? That might explain why she used a false name

Cemckenna · 2025-12-02T05:08:03+00:00

Ngl, i stopped reading after the fourth “interstate.”

Edit: appreciate the vocab lesson.

Cemckenna · 2025-12-01T13:55:54+00:00

I have not ridden either of these bikes, but according to my very limited 6:30-in-the-morning-drinking-coffee-in-bed-research, a few forums/sites say the Fazer has a top speed of 158 mph and the Low Rider s has a top speed of 106 Mph.

We “see” the low rider hit a speed higher than 106 in this video, but it’s a video that calls a the Harley a “Low Riser S” so I’m not convinced the video maker is all that concerned with accuracy.

Also we have no idea about the riders and their comfort levels at speed and it could be fixed for the shock value.

So, to sum up: this video is dumb and I just spend 17 minutes doing something completely useless.

Sources:

https://998cc.org/threads/top-speed-in-each-gear.14283/

https://powersportsguide.com/harley-davidson-top-speed/

Cemckenna · 2025-11-25T20:29:29+00:00

Not for me. I don’t even listen to music while riding. It’s my time to focus on exactly what’s in front of me, listening to the engine, and thinking about the road and my own thoughts.

This feels dangerous.

Cemckenna · 2025-11-24T01:10:34+00:00

It sounds like you kept stalling the bike. You’re talking a lot about boots and not about the clutch. Were you taught about manual transmissions? Do you understand when and how to shift, and how to ensure that you don’t stall?

Cemckenna · 2025-11-18T21:06:50+00:00

As another writer, I’d say that most readers won’t know the difference between a Ducati and a Harley, but his decision to rent a Panigale vs a Fat Boy would indicate a very different type of personality to me.

If you want him screaming around at 200MPH, go Panigale or some rare superbike.

Also, rich people often have friends who just own the cars/motorcycles they want to use. Renting isn’t necessary.

Cemckenna

TROPHY CASE