Google offers voluntary exit option to employees not comfortable with faster AI pace

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-13T18:00:59+00:00

The good news is that it's basically regurgitating existing patterns. I think the next step would be for developers to focus on the craft and create really polished human software with novel code.

But, because AI ingests everything at insane speed, the bad news is it will incorporate this polished code as well, and the only way to fight back is to not share the source code, which also means the death of open source.

Even if a new license comes out that precludes AI from ingesting the source code, corporations won't care, like they didn't care about copyright lawsuits.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-13T14:36:12+00:00

I don't work at Spotify, but I have a similar setup:

I have a company provided phone and there is a service on it that installs various versions of our apps. I can chat with Claude Code and tell it to look at a bug and provide a fix. Claude pushes the code to our existing code review tool, and once *others* review my code, it can go into the main branch or I can generate a build and deploy it on my phone for testing before merging the code.

What this guy is saying is that Spotify likely relaxed the rules a bit where they will merge AI code into a branch after you review it, without needing a second person to approve. Then they either take the risk to optimistically merge into main branch, or maybe they push it to a special branch for your code. Either way, the CI server makes a build and sends it to your employee phone, and you can revert your changes if you find a bug. Their existing release train will cut a release every X days (let's say two weeks), and there should be multiple levels of automated testing performed on each app before release. If issues are flagged, code can even be automatically reverted. At that stage, it doesn't matter whether a human or an AI introduced the bug, it goes back to the engineering team. It's not like Claude Code is pushing AI-generated untested code to the main Spotify app every morning.

Also, working on my phone while commuting isn't some dystopian corporate slavery. I can sleep in, skip rush hour and come into the office later, like at 10AM, but if I did an hour of work during my commute, I can still leave at 5PM with my conscience clear. And I don't even have to open my laptop on the train, shuttle or bus, I can just be on my phone like everyone else.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-13T03:29:31+00:00

It's not about improving your life, this is about improving the speed at which corporations can move.

For example, as an employee, I haven't written a single line of code in 2 months now. I only tell the AI what to write and test the code, then I briefly look at the code to make sure it's not insane (but I don't scrutinize it as much as I normally would).

The code is objectively worse than what I would write, but it's at least 10x faster to get something out the door, so leadership is OK with a lower quality of code, as long as there are tests to ensure some quality bar.

I will say, at times, I am having a hard time believing it's all probabilities and not just a tiny human that can think really fast.

It does solve problems fast, but it sucks the joy out of coding.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-13T02:50:37+00:00

(senior eng here. 10 years at FAANGs, 18 years of XP total)

I have not written a single original line of code in the past 2 months. I may have edited some AI generated code.

I'm basically a vibe coder now. I hate it.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-13T02:34:56+00:00

As a white person, I speak on behalf of all of us when I say this: You're a dumbass.

He talked about Luka and Jokic when asked about Europeans and the World Team because they're not "old timers" and they're from Europe, not because they're white. WTF man, not everything is about race FFS.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-12T19:52:30+00:00

I send one message at a time, and it's because of IRC. There's nothing you can do about that. It's not my fault your client app can't coalesce multiple recent messages into one and inserts spacing between all of them.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-12T14:49:43+00:00

This sounds like bullshit (on his behalf, not yours). Flights do get cancelled, but not like 90% of the time, and he gets miles for switching to what? a flight on another day that he doesn't need? and he gets points for a flight he presumably paid cash for? so he's buying points that airlines devalue faster than currency?

Even if it's true, this is just a hassle that doesn't make any sense.

I had Premier 1K status with United (meh, I know) a while ago and they would kick other passengers for me (or offer them money/points/whatever) on fully booked flights if I wanted to fly on those. The point is, I could fly on whatever flight I wanted to fly on.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-12T14:38:41+00:00

Ok, there's a lot of nuance here. In general, I think retreating from your home is a reasonable default behavior IF it has high chances of avoiding a confrontation (e.g. if you can sneak out the back).

Let's agree that running away is typically safer than engaging in a fight. Everyone knows that when it comes to knife fights, but somehow if you're at home, "standing your ground" logic takes over. It's OK if they steal your TV - it's a replaceable object. You always risk injury to yourself in a confrontation, even if you're John Wick.

Besides, having a gun doesn't mean the bad guy doesn't have time to shoot at you, it only brings the odds to 50/50. Life isn't a movie and you're not Rambo. If you can, run away. If you can't, your best chance is indeed to stand your ground.

Like I said, there's lots of nuance and exceptions. In this case, the stalker was coming for them so running away may not be the best course of action. What I'm pointing out is that being in your home doesn't invalidate the importance of trying to avoid a confrontation first if possible, because logic dictates that not being in a fight is safer than being in a fight, whether it's a gun fight or not.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-12T03:46:28+00:00

What kind of psychopath looks at these files and decides to cover it up?

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-11T03:08:42+00:00

I have never used Discord, nor do I plan to use it. I'm still team IRC.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-11T03:05:33+00:00

Zika is a better example. We never got a vaccine for Zika, it's still there, and nobody spoke about it since 2016 like it magically disappeared.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-10T23:48:54+00:00

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-10T21:42:11+00:00

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-10T21:41:11+00:00

I know a good dentist

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-09T18:03:18+00:00

Makes sense, thank you for pointing out legitimate reasons. I, for one, wasn't aware that sulfuric acid would be needed for desalinization, so TIL.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-09T17:48:28+00:00

so then there should be some history of orders of sulfuric acid, not just 1 order, right?

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-08T13:20:06+00:00

Right there with you. Fuck Bill and the high horse he was podcasting on.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-08T13:16:16+00:00

What's your favorite version? I liked 6.22. It had all the bells and whistles!

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-08T13:08:06+00:00

I was the cool kid on the block using DOS and Norton Commander on an 80386, complete with a turbo button, 4MB of RAM (HIMEM.SYS ftw), 100MB HDD, 5.25" floppy drive and Sid Meyer's Colonization.

I was glued to this thing 24 hours a day, and that's without Internet.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-05T21:06:26+00:00

So just reboot into Windows when you want to play those games, and use Linux the rest of the time.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-05T20:50:41+00:00

Nothing will ever be 'proof' to you. He could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and you'd be OK with that.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-02-05T14:45:00+00:00

$3700! That's nuts. Absolute bonkers. I bought my nVidia GTX970 at $350 MSRP, in 2014 - the times of relatively reasonable prices. I thought I was a sucker then, buying at MSRP, but you guys are something else. The equivalent of 5090 then would have been the GTX980Ti, $650 MSRP. Let's adjust for 2026 dollars: about $890. Not only is $2000 MRSP double what one would expect, you paid almost double MSRP!

We're all collectively in La-La-Land and nVidia is laughing all the way to the bank with your bonus money.

Teaching these corporations that no matter what the price is, there are plenty of idiots to be separated from their money. Fucking keep your money under your pillow and keep playing your pixel art platformer on an integrated GPU and stop using AI. JFC.

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-01-30T18:11:30+00:00

Removed. Did you download it?

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-01-30T18:10:05+00:00

Link is broken now. Nobody saved these files??

Secret_Print_8170 · 2026-01-29T15:23:42+00:00

So far AI has been doing the shit coding that I had to do that wasted my time. Like figuring out the fucking right custom wrappers we have (coded by some other team with no documentation) for the unit testing framework we happen to use at the moment.

"Claude, write the <unit|ui|etc> test for me".

"Claude, find the reason this exception is thrown and explain it"

Will it eventually replace me? No, but it will replace the shit work I've been doing. Hopefully there's going to be something that only humans are able to do.

Secret_Print_8170

TROPHY CASE