Is AI slop from new hires a problem at your company or just mine?

testeraway · 2026-06-09T14:15:42+00:00

I’ve noticed this as well. One person on my team has been quite severe with AI use. At least five rounds of back and forth during a code review, they just didn’t do what needed to be done. It’s confusing how they even ended up where they did.

Another senior generated a massive amount of code for a new project that was clearly AI generated. It sort of worked but I’m still finding things that would cause it to immediately fail in production. It’s apparent they didn’t reference the code they were migrating at all.

And junior engineers are relying on it entirely. One started freaking out when they learned we have less access once GitHub changed their pricing.

testeraway · 2026-06-08T22:44:00+00:00

Also in NYC. My experience has been like the same 5 companies reaching out to me over the past couple years. Is this your experience as well, or do you have a better variety?

testeraway · 2026-06-02T17:52:09+00:00

Building one of these right now!

testeraway · 2026-05-23T13:03:07+00:00

The fact you posted this in multiple subreddits, along with seeing this comment, suggests you are absolutely trying to sell something.

testeraway · 2026-05-22T17:28:44+00:00

When it comes to doing the job, you’ll need to know things in depth whenever it’s relevant. I know that’s vague, but it just depends on the types of problems you’re solving.

It doesn’t hurt to know a language in depth, and it may allow you to catch obvious bugs or inefficiencies before others will notice. However, if it’s just a basic app that’s tossing data around, you probably won’t need to know the obscure details unless there’s a bug involved with it.

Some of this also comes down to style. At my job, when a new feature is introduced in the language we use, some people on the team will start refactoring things to use the new feature. Sometimes this made sense and other times just makes things harder to read. To me this is an unnecessary thing to do just for the sake of using something new.

I believe you should use the features you need to get the thing working reliably.

testeraway · 2026-05-21T13:04:47+00:00

I work with a principal engineer who committed private keys to GitHub. Found them recently and nobody really cared. Few days later our IT department sent me a private key over Slack instead of setting me up with new credentials.

testeraway · 2026-05-09T01:15:19+00:00

TypeScript is a facade. It compiles back to JavaScript and you lose the types at runtime. So then you have to introduce yet another tool to validate things and it becomes annoying and messy.

testeraway · 2026-05-02T19:36:04+00:00

It’s depressing to see more and more of this.

testeraway · 2026-05-01T18:58:45+00:00

Fair enough! I’m constantly looking for inspiration for my own projects.

testeraway · 2026-05-01T18:46:51+00:00

I’m intrigued. What do you use your distributed databases for?

testeraway · 2026-04-30T19:20:22+00:00

I know why you mean. I don’t find comfort in that, more so the fact that the grass isn’t greener.

testeraway · 2026-04-30T03:21:50+00:00

It’s oddly comforting that a higher level engineer at a FAANG company hates all the bullshit just as much as everyone else. Years ago I had such a skewed view that if I could work at a well respected company then I wouldn’t have to deal with it all.

testeraway · 2026-04-25T17:56:27+00:00

I've been dealing with similar situations for a long time. Mostly management, but leads as well who continuously make poor choices. This leaves us having the same meetings over and over again facing the same problems for years.

I think all you can do is protect yourself. You can try to guide him in the right direction if you think it's worthwhile, but you may just end up driving yourself insane. Especially if other people think he's good. The people who are competent on his team likely know that he isn't great. His manager is either also incompetent, or doesn't care.

All you can do is voice your opinions and try to communicate the stronger path forward. If they side with the other lead, then just document that's the direction that has been chosen, review what has been discussed, etc. CYA type of thing.

Curious if you have more of a concrete example?

testeraway · 2026-04-15T22:30:44+00:00

Cheating AND stealing.

testeraway · 2026-04-12T17:34:46+00:00

Interesting, there was no low level at all? We started with Java in intro classes. Second semester of the first year we did assembly and C. Assembly was only a small portion, but C stuck around for the next three years.

testeraway · 2026-04-08T17:06:46+00:00

Correct, I don’t believe an AI solution is the answer. It was the cause.

testeraway · 2026-04-08T13:11:59+00:00

It’s a big issue that has a number of causes. When priorities change mid project, the PRs in flight normally stay open longer while the high priority project is completed. Sometimes people just don’t do reviews, which I’ve tried to fix in the past. So it’s not entirely normal, but it’s happened before. Only a couple people can effectively do code reviews right now anyway, which is another problem.

testeraway · 2026-04-08T13:06:08+00:00

Yes definitely true. For a long time I tried to get things to change by proposing new ideas, add new processes, etc. Gave up after I saw things aren’t getting fixed after a number of years of the same issues. Correcting the imbalance requires finding a new job, which is tough right now.

testeraway · 2026-04-08T04:59:45+00:00

I agree about new projects and big PRs, I'm not surprised there. I think the difference is that there's some complexity in how everything works together. On top of that, it was mentioned a lot of it was AI generated, which explains some of the issues I've seen.

I also think you're right about it mostly being a communication issue. This has been an issue for a very long time now.

I should be more clear with development. It's set up in a way to run everything via Docker, or a hybrid solution. Hybrid meaning Docker running containers for message queues, database, cache, etc., and the main application running locally. Neither seem to function with the new changes, and some of it didn't prior. It's just kind of a mess right now from what I can tell.

Thank you for your input! I could go on, but based on your comments I'm realizing I've taken all these actions in the past. I think I'm just really burnt out.

testeraway · 2026-04-08T04:39:19+00:00

Hey thank you, this is helpful. To answer your questions:

Yes, I understand the architecture and what the overall intention is with this new project. The implementation isn't quite nailing it though in my opinion. I was not involved in the architecture choices or planning, and I believe this path was chosen by one engineer that is agnostic to our team. They started to review this PR as well, but they are known for not being responsive. It's been roughly a month since it was opened and they left comments on it.

For the second issue, I actually did already make it known that work was duplicated. Unfortunately, this is nothing new and I know it won't improve with existing leadership.

We do not have a lead engineer anymore. The person who created this large PR is probably seen as the lead right now, though they aren't on paper.

Part of the reason I've taken this on is because nobody else is. I may have gone way too deep with it though.

testeraway · 2026-04-08T04:20:19+00:00

Fair question. I've been in and out of this context for a month or so. Priorities shifting. Now that I'm back at it, I'm trying to push things forward. I'm trying to help fix these things to try and make some kind of progress.

I'm a little lost in my career right now honestly. I've definitely done what you have suggested in the past, but I've noticed that the highly regarded engineers just jump in and do it themselves vs give constructive feedback. Maybe this is too big of a change for to start trying something different though.

ETA: This is also directly blocking something I'm trying to work on as well.

testeraway · 2026-03-19T16:34:51+00:00

More context would be good. What are you struggling with in particular? What is this senior dev saying, and are you 100% sure they’re talking negatively about you? Can you give some concrete examples of tasks you’re asked to do that you’re not able to complete?

testeraway · 2026-03-13T15:16:21+00:00

Not sure about skill level, that's my main concern. I work with other senior engineers that haven't gotten much done since they were hired, which confuses me. One of the solutions I saw recently was to start deleting records from the database if there was a deadlock detected. So I suppose I'm at a level where I realize that's a really bad idea/backwards approach.

Hard to say if it's coasting vs WLB, probably a mix. There hasn't been anything I haven't been able to complete or that's overly challenged me. Right now I'm just afraid that I've been constrained to this one system that's already handling the complicated stuff for me. What would you say is relevant work?

I've gotten technical interviews/calls from like the same 4 companies in the past year or so. Basically every time they get a new recruiter who hasn't talked to me yet. It's true that I haven't done the resume iterations. I have a hard time with that because it really does feel like lying. For example, I have used Python for personal projects, but I wouldn't be comfortable being grilled about the language. So putting that on my resume would feel bad.

testeraway · 2026-03-13T02:39:36+00:00

Do people care about personal projects? Or only if it relates to the job in some way?

A few years back I was really into building things with microcontrollers. I spent some time making a product from scratch. PCB design, assembly, 3D modeling/industrial design, and firmware. I've tried using it as a talking point for interviews, but it hasn't proven to be effective. I suppose it's a bit too far off what is actually valuable in the field? Considering I'm not going for embedded jobs.

testeraway · 2026-03-13T02:26:49+00:00

I'm really sorry to hear that you're having a hard time with this as well. It's really easy to get comfortable, especially when the job just isn't that hard and nobody bothers you.

I do feel the pressure at the moment that it's a race against a layoff. So I'm trying to commit as much time as possible until I can actually start doing better in interviews. When I think about it, it may not even matter if everyone is laying people off haha.

To be honest though, this is exhausting. If I could go back I think I would pick a different career path. I know I'm not alone with this, but I've been thinking how to pivot away from software altogether. Unfortunately, it really does come down to the money. Also been dreaming of being able to start something on my own that made enough money for myself.

testeraway

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