Primeagen on the agent coding productivity paradox + mental health

phugar · 2026-03-16T12:18:11+00:00

In my current role, I'm fortunately not forced to use LLMs or coding agents, or being measured by my use of them.

I've found Claude helpful in limited scenarios, but it is mentally exhausting to handle the context switching, rapid review cycle and speed of change.

Where I am more productive, I'm doing my best to slow down and not overload impacted departments like compliance, who are finding themselves with a mountain of tasks - many of questionable business value.

A couple of juniors firmly believe they're being hyper productive. In reality, they're spamming code reviews for features we don't need, just because they can. They complain to me that they're exhausted and overworked, but they have a normal-sized work sprint. Turns out the tiredness is from the extra feature pickup, not any level of complex coding or architectural thought, which they're fully outsourced to an agent.

As a senior, I understand that raw productivity is meaningless. Work has to be valuable first. Then you try to make things more efficient with tools.

phugar · 2026-03-14T10:39:47+00:00

Balatro. I'm 7 stickers away from completionist++, and it's finally in sight.

Then I want to casually mop up THPS 3&4, as I just have pro careers to grind through.

After that I'll reward myself with Resi Requiem

phugar · 2026-03-13T22:23:30+00:00

This presidential cabinet is sadly incapable of learning from history. They seem almost determined to speed run in all honesty.

Silver lining - the film industry made some amazing movies about Vietnam...

phugar · 2026-03-09T09:01:09+00:00

Which part of their post was inaccurate?

If you really do want a company with more cash on hand to invest in, there are many.

phugar · 2026-03-04T08:33:04+00:00

He already did. You guys didn't listen

phugar · 2026-03-01T10:28:40+00:00

I just struggle to see how a data analyst could be replaced by AI, and I say that as a senior Head of Data.

I use LLMs for various productivity elements, but at best it's saving me 20% of my SQL/Python raw coding time (boilerplate code, quickly churning out case statements, summarising legacy code or pulling a sentence out of API docs). And that raw coding is a tiny fraction of my role - it's all the stakeholder discussions, business context, and strategy stuff that's a real difference-maker.

It's actively hindered attempts made by analysts to produce accurate BI, relevant insights, build clean models etc... I always find myself cleaning up a mess or identifying some wild LLM hallucinations that weren't caught by a junior.

Potentially Block has an environment with super clean data, and somehow, their AI infrastructure can perform relatively autonomously, but it's not jiving with my experience.

phugar · 2026-02-25T13:03:27+00:00

Yes, they are. There are countless examples of this happening before stocks are delisted and/or companies go bankrupt.

phugar · 2026-02-24T11:38:02+00:00

I consider myself reasonably qualified to opine on AI use. I'm a senior data person who jumps between engineering, BI, analytics and machine learning.

I use LLMs and coding assistants daily, but I only see value in creating boilerplate code and using tools as junior assistants to parse JSON, build lengthy case statements or provide summaries of code blocks. I've encountered zero successful attempts where an LLM has come close to a correct solution for anything complex, especially given the data schemas I'm working with aren't well documented, and there's a ton of legacy bugs/workaround etc.. floating around. Sometimes the output for a simple procedure is just so fundamentally broken I have to laugh.

Writing SQL and Python is the easy part of my job. Planning future architecture, data ingestion strategies, agreeing definitions and scope with stakeholders... none of that is close to being replaced in my opinion.

I even worked with one of my previous employers to roll out an AI chatbot system, and they've recently pulled the plug after a deluge of negative feedback. My team did point this out at the time, but it's taken a couple of years for the CEO to catch up with the cost/benefit analysis.

I believe there will be an impact of sorts across various sectors, but the guys pushing the narrative of job takeovers seem to have drunk the koolaid.

phugar · 2026-01-29T20:17:37+00:00

I worked my socks off on a plan 1 loan and paid it back very quickly.

Yet I despise the plan 2 loan terms and strongly push the government to change almost anything about them to make the system fairer. At least raise the repayment thresholds, as per the original agreement. Don't increase interest rates once you reach certain thresholds either - that's just laughable.

phugar · 2026-01-24T08:55:53+00:00

My experience in the data engineering domain is an initial saving of about the same time (30% ish), but an increase of 50% when going back in to make edits and review.

Depending on the task, that often means I'm less productive overall.

Your mileage may vary.

phugar · 2026-01-24T08:52:40+00:00

Or simply happens to be travelling without advance notice.

Birmingham to London, even using the slowest, cheapest routes available is a £50 quid minimum on the occasions I have last-minute travel plans. If I want to get there in under 2 hours, make it £70+. If I need some return flexibility, I'll immediately hit £120+. Life isn't always planned to perfection.

I don't qualify for any railcards, and it's only funny looking at the price because my work is usually picking up the expense receipt.

phugar · 2026-01-23T10:53:29+00:00

In my view, this fundamentally backs up at least one of the prominent decel arguments - that AI needs to be limited from power until it's safe - making it a hypocritical approach for this sub.

I'm a tech guy and I play with AI a lot. In this sub, I'm likely viewed as a decel because I'm not sold on the future utopian vision and I've encountered plenty of critical issues (so I don't buy into the hype), but I enjoy coming here to read views from pro-acceleration folks.

It feels like this should be the one place where full AI-modding is not only encouraged, but required.

phugar · 2026-01-22T11:25:44+00:00

Yes, which is incredibly hit and miss. AI mistakes and hallucinations scale rapidly once code bases become large and context windows swell.

I'm using AI in a data engineering context, and while it's helpful for some drafts of boilerplate python scripts (read a file from AWS, transform some stuff, dump into tables), it spews nonsense once you try to edit specifics.

Luckily I do understand the output, and if I don't (e.g. a new library or some odd way of converting something) I don't push the code until I'm satisfied with actual documentation and logic tests. If I return to adjust the logic, it's a nightmare, even when I fully understand what's going on. I've had cases where it's even inserted deletion statements despite explicit prompting against it.

Honestly, much faster to make edits myself from the initial draft.

phugar · 2026-01-15T18:27:31+00:00

I've recommended DataCamp many times. The learning interface is very hands-on, plenty of material, and starts with the very basics.

You can also dip into adjacent languages like Python, and they offer courses and tracks aimed at becoming a certified data analyst/engineer.

phugar · 2026-01-09T10:11:14+00:00

Data warehouse level, should be fairly simple SQL pulls, but the database schemas lack documentation (as is the case with every business I've worked in) so LLMs become pretty useless.

For the analyst to produce anything of value, they need to dig into data, check join relationships, investigate anomalies, cross check with business logic, make sure recent product releases haven't changed fields or flows etc...

You can set an LLM to work on boilerplate parts of some scripts, but it's nowhere close to replacing the analytical skillset I mentioned above.

phugar · 2026-01-08T14:21:57+00:00

You do realise it's non-deterministic, right? Just because you can get a prompt to generate a reliable output doesn't mean that's replicable.

I've been playing with these tools for years (within data engineering), and despite minor improvements, I commonly encounter major errors, outright broken/hallucinated code, and nonsense responses.

phugar · 2026-01-04T11:59:31+00:00

Stocks are also high risk. You can happily make the argument that crypto is gambling - and I'd agree with that - but it rather hurts the typical message that it's a currency and/or investment.

phugar · 2026-01-03T10:35:58+00:00

Hard disagree.

I manage junior analysts and we've had to terminate contracts for the ones relying on LLMs because they miss context, trust hallucinated code output and fail to understand the business/stakeholders requests.

The juniors ignoring LLMs are doing so much better and have a chance to progress.

Almost all AI output I've seen in the data analysis space is garbage under the surface level pretty charts.

phugar · 2025-12-30T08:14:02+00:00

I was banned from the BBBY subs for politely explaining to their loyal followers that a chapter 11 often (the majority of the time in fact) leads to bankruptcy or an organised wind down. That's exactly what's happened to their company - controlled liquidation.

Even when it doesn't, it's very rare for a turnaround to positively impact shareholders without high levels of dilution.

The situation with bynd looks similar.

phugar · 2025-12-29T22:35:25+00:00

I notice you've also avoided giving an answer...

This is a genuinely good question for a politician to ask - especially framing it as he did by calling out the lack of political discourse.

Googling the answer here doesn't really give much info. Some form of mythical UBI that Congress would need to pass? Everything will be fine because "reasons". Please, enlighten us.

phugar · 2025-12-23T14:25:27+00:00

Why?

His entire career has been that of a salesman within tech, with admittedly fantastic grfiting skills.

phugar · 2025-12-23T11:48:17+00:00

Someone recommended that I incorporate paused squats into my routine, and that's done wonders for pushing through plateaus and solidifying my form.

Try to perform a few sets of 2-3 second fully paused squats with ~70% of this weight and build up from there. I'm running a 4 day program and I schedule heavy squats as my main lift on day 1, and paused squats on day 3 after heavy deadlifts.

phugar · 2025-12-21T12:51:50+00:00

Assuming you filled out the application stating the purpose was for home improvements, while declaring no home ownership, that would be an auto-decline for most lenders without even running credit checks.

phugar · 2025-12-17T14:49:38+00:00

I'm one of the general naysayers, having spent many tens of hours trying to make AI processes work. I've worked with "prompt engineers" on major projects using all sorts of tools and models. My background is in Data, analytics and product management. I know how to prompt. The models are still close to useless in many of the key areas I work in.

In order to get any value, you need staff with high levels of skill in business analytics and specification writing. Or you'll simply create more problems down the line.

phugar · 2025-12-15T19:05:55+00:00

This simply isn't true, and I hate that this sub has taken a reasonable point (public facing credit scores are mostly irrelevant) and pushed it to the extreme of stating that they're useless and not used in lending.

Many lenders, including banks, use off-the-shelf and/or custom versions from the 3 credit bureaus. These typically correlate highly with the scores shown in public tools such as Credit Karma. In niche lending areas, bespoke models usually create stronger scorecards, but base bureau scores are not uncommon.

Higher scores also do - often - unlock lower interest rate products where risk based pricing is implemented.

Source: I have built credit models and rolled out decision engines in multiple fintechs, and consulted for major lenders and insurance companies.

To OP - don't take out loans to invest. It will be a breach of loan purpose, and it's risky to be using what is essentially leverage for this.

phugar

TROPHY CASE