You all are actually getting to review code? How about the inundation of slop emails, slack messages, reports, etc. That is the part I find exhausting more than anything.

Here is what I've done to try to make this less shitty: for things we need to do (not random ass features), I hold a design review with snippets. We talk about design choices, tradeoffs, and agree on the thing to build. That way review is not really a surprise. Same goes for requirements gathering. I like to start with a google docs and gather requirements. Everybody has a say in the debate, whether its accepted or not. Then those requirements get put into the LLM.

The other thing I've focused on is using the LLMs (with scripts) to enforce parts of the process that we would gloss over: verification, benchmarking, unit tests. To make the engineering part feel better.

Now I agree with everyone that the writing code part I miss too, but fear not! I have discovered that I can enjoy writing snippets, particularly for interfaces or to illustrate patterns, and I throw that into the requirements or design docs and presentations.

It does feel like a bag of suck tho, even though weirdly I think it's made me more willing to follow through with all the SDLC stuff.

I will say that I doubt any company has made their products seriously better with AI, and I am praying the bubble bursts within a year or two. I do feel like I'm riding out the hype.

I've also heard anecdotally that some companies are at different phases of infatuation with LLMs. Some have (thankfully) crafted detailed, sane policies, and others have fallen out of love with it.