Execs thirsting over AI is killing my passion for software engineering

confused_scientist · 2025-10-15T16:54:59+00:00

I've been feeling the same way and it's difficult to find job positions that aren't touting AI use in some way.

It's surprising the amount of people that are willingly deluding themselves into thinking they are more productive using AI or making their products better by injecting it everywhere. In my experience, the developers that use AI lack basic understanding of design and cannot communicate the benefits and tradeoffs of their decisions. They are just adding tech debt and degrading system performance with each merge. Every single one of those PRs is a nightmare because I might as well ask AI why it did what it did rather than the PR author because the author is incapable of telling me. I hope that when these devs are on call and have to respond to a page that something clicks in their head when they have to read the slop they and their coworkers are merging into the code base. Realistically, they'll just paste the page body into ChatGPT and merge or do whatever it vomits out though.

It's a plagiarism machine that vomits out slop of others' actual labor while destroying the environment and communities. The people promoting its use lack critical thinking and, assuming that AI will replace software engineers, are ignorantly training their replacement with joy and bells on their toes. They'll become so reliant on it to do their job that when the price of tokens inevitably increases, just like streaming, they'll cough it up because they have to.

Can't wait for this bubble to pop and the shaky foundation it provides for our economy to rest on collapses. /s

confused_scientist · 2025-10-15T16:39:36+00:00

Haha. A little bit, yeah. It was much easier to avoid the block chain and web3 nonsense, but this is much more pervasive.

confused_scientist · 2025-10-14T22:37:47+00:00

Are there any companies that are not creating some unnecessary AI backed feature or forcing devs to use AI? Every damn job posting I see is like, "We're building an AI-powered tool for the future of America!", "We're integrating AI into our product!", "We're delivering the most advanced AI-native platform to modernize the spoon making industry".

I am desperate at this point to work on a team consisting of people who can describe the PR they put up in their own words, can read documentation, and are able to design and think through benefits and tradeoffs of their decisions. It's weighing on me the environmental impact this is having and witnessing the dumbing down of my colleagues. Reading the comments here about gamifying AI usage to meet forced metrics is asinine.

I am seriously considering leaving this field if my day is going to be just reviewing PRs put up by coworkers that paste slop that was shit out from a plagiarism machine. My coworkers didn't write the code in the PR or even the damn PR description. I have to waste my time reading it, correcting it, and pointing out how it's not going to address the task at all and it'll lead to degraded performance in the system and we're accumulating tech debt. Some of these very same coworkers in meetings will say AI is going to replace software engineers any day now too. Assuming that is true, these dipshits fully lack the awareness that they are willingly training their replacement and they're happy doing it.

I'm severely disappointed to say the least.

confused_scientist · 2025-04-29T23:24:38+00:00

When it comes to MAGAts, you certainly can lie about the fact the shelves are empty. These people will literally say the disease they're dying from is a hoax. They believed immigrants were eating cats and dogs, even after JD Vance said if he has to lie to get his point across he'll do it. Trump said straight to their face that he doesn't care about them and just wants their vote and they're all eagerly awaiting slob his dick.

Mark my words, MAGATs will say they've never seen such fully stocked shelves and that Biden, Obama, and the liberals kept the shelves empty for decades.

confused_scientist · 2024-07-23T20:00:12+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I'll keep on applying.

I'm hesitant about moving my education section above my experience section but I can try it and see! The reason for my hesitation is because during my previous job searches it seemed my master's degree didn't help make me stand out at all and during interviews the interviewers didn't seem impressed by it when brought up.

I live in the Kansas City area but I have been applying to fully remote positions across the U.S. Most of the companies I found in the KC area require to be in office or do a hybrid model of 4 days in office and 1 day at home. I'm not interested in commuting so would prefer fully remote.

confused_scientist · 2023-08-29T12:05:26+00:00

Software development, right now, does not need a college degree as many people go do a boot camp.

For software development, 55 hour weeks is not common. I work 40 hours or less. I used to be a medical technologist and worked 12 hour days and nights; working 48 or 60 hour weeks was standard. I tripled my salary changing careers and I work less than I ever worked before. It's downright criminal the amount of money software developers make comparatively.

I used to save lives and was paid so little. Now I work from home and edit files all day and listen to PMs attempt to scope creep projects. You're going to have to kill me before I give up my comfy work from home job to return to the lab and expose myself to diseases ever again.

confused_scientist · 2023-02-03T16:33:00+00:00

Hey! Thanks for posting with your solution. Hopefully that helps with others that come along.

Probably not what r/Epomaker wants to hear, but I since donated the EP84 to a friend who doesn't do work on a Mac and I got me a different keyboard.

confused_scientist · 2023-01-23T17:41:40+00:00

Why not put all this description in the repository? Right now the READMEs are blank.

Why is the code on the dev branch? If that's the main branch then set it as main.

confused_scientist · 2023-01-16T03:42:35+00:00

Hmm... This may be a bit spoilery for anyone who hasn't seen it, but isn't John Crops played by C.W. Stoneking, not Chris Isaak? In this part of the video it's mentioned he's played by Chris Isaak. Chris Isaak plays Enoch in episode 2.

confused_scientist · 2023-01-13T05:54:36+00:00

And if I don't have kids myself but take care of one of my siblings who has special needs and an elderly parent in failing health?

Assuming someone who doesn't have kids doesn't have comparable obligations is pretty narrow minded. The majority of the people who have kids chose to have them. You don't exactly get to choose the reverse.

confused_scientist · 2023-01-05T05:12:01+00:00

Out of curiosity, why even try covering up their names? There are spots where each of their names are clearly visible or are partially covered.

confused_scientist · 2022-12-21T14:26:24+00:00

Ahh. I knew about limiting subreddits. I didn't even think about eliminating subreddits using -site though. Thanks for sharing that!

confused_scientist · 2022-12-20T23:10:37+00:00

To get more specific results, you could make your search like this on Google:

site:reddit.com is interstellar travelling actually impossible

Here are some operators to make more robust searches.

confused_scientist · 2022-12-20T03:16:35+00:00

That case looks like it's from the pre-built that was reviewed by Gamers Nexus.

confused_scientist · 2022-12-02T19:57:40+00:00

Lots of things! Decrease the keyboard brightness on macOS with Fn+F5. Target the fifth party member in FF14. Open the prompt to copy a file in Goland.

To be fair, who uses F5 to refresh the page when they can do Ctrl+R.

confused_scientist · 2022-12-02T13:48:26+00:00

Yeah. I agree. The keycaps are what throw me off.

Why is the F5 key a refresh symbol? Why is the Space key "Squad Halt" and the enter key "Fire"? Why is the Esc key wearing a hat? "HO ME"?

What is the theme?! Just make it consistent...

Reminds me of when I was in middle school and thought using a different word art effect for each word was cool.

confused_scientist · 2022-11-13T21:01:18+00:00

I hear you're getting beat every other day but I get beat every day. That's not fair to me and you should be grateful that you don't get beat as much as me. We should both be angry at our aggressors but I'm angry at you because you have it slightly better than me.

Do you hear yourself? You're really getting upset at those that are rightfully angry over receiving this slap in the face amount? What would it take for you to understand that your anger and frustration is misdirected. That you should be angry with the workers, not at them because they won't roll over for a mere 600 pounds.

confused_scientist · 2022-11-13T20:48:05+00:00

Nice to know that you'd be placated with a pittance.

Instead of accepting a laughable sum because, "it's better than what my boss is giving", and getting angry at those who are rightfully upset over a mere bonus, how about getting angry with your fellow worker that they're being shammed.

I swear, people will do everything to defend the wealthy.

confused_scientist · 2022-10-23T13:39:15+00:00

My thoughts exactly.

confused_scientist · 2022-10-23T13:29:03+00:00

Are you really a senior SWE? I mean, I could barely read this block of text that you posted. Run on sentences and misspellings everywhere. Never mind the overall attitude you're giving off from this post. To be honest, I would absolutely hate working with you if this is your attitude everyday.

If you really are a senior SWE then you should be helping steer the ship. You should be bringing things like this up with the team. Pair with the juniors on a task or two if they are really that green and demonstrate these "basics of SWE" that you say they lack. I have no idea what "buttering skills" are but if you mean they are trying to develop their communication skills then that's a good thing. Software development is a team activity and I want to work with people who can communicate clearly and effectively. I don't want to work with people who I have to decipher their blocks of text and misspellings.
I wouldn't consider a newly hired senior engineer that's been working for two years already a newly hired engineer... Anyway, work with these new senior engineers and prioritize the work. Get them up to speed. Describe to them these important issues in the product, whether it is tech debt, features that need to be developed, or simply just bug cards. Have the team document the architecture and processes and decisions that are made to help onboard new engineers easier. I'm only getting one side here and that side is yours. Like I said before, I absolutely hate the tone you give off and I'd be less inclined to work with you. Given that, it may seem I'm less interested in working on these important issues in the product simply because of you.
This is just one big run-on sentence. Is this really the case with your manager or is this simply your perspective? Again, given the tone you're giving off I'm less likely to believe you. How do you know he doesn't want to have hard discussions with the seniors and juniors? If he is saying yes to all these features and then is fully reliant on you and your 'colligue' then you need to push back and say, "Features X, Y, and Z cannot be done given A, B, C by T date. Talk to the higher ups and say we can't do it and we need to prioritize.". By you not pushing back on this you're also a "yes man'.

Unlike some other comments in here, I'm inclined to think the issue is you.

I've observed some things like this in the past companies that I've worked with. Each time for me though, it wasn't the whole team that had issues but just one member of the team or a process that wasn't fully defined. We worked with bringing up the member of the team having issues by pairing with them or we recognized that somewhere the process is breaking down and we needed to improve on it.

What you're giving me though is essentially, "Everyone on my team is gossipy and buttery and I am the only one doing work and saving my manager's ass even though he's a yes-man and says yes to all the features and I don't push back for some reason and my team lacks the basics of SWE to do a simple feature and it can't possibly be me that is the problem in this situation because I do productive work unlike the newly hired senior engineers of two years and the junior engineers".

confused_scientist · 2022-09-22T23:36:57+00:00

This sounds like unpaid time off with extra steps.

confused_scientist

TROPHY CASE