An Ask HN post questions whether large-company software engineering roles, including at FAANG-like firms, reward performative activity over meaningful progress. Commenters discuss bureaucracy, 1:1s, standups, management value, and the role of a small number of high-impact engineers. The thread is split: some see corporate make-work as inevitable, while others argue coordination, feedback, and organizational maintenance are real engineering costs.
Amazon employees have been using the term 'Sloppenheimer'—a portmanteau of 'slop' and 'Oppenheimer'—to mock their company's AI products on internal Slack channels. The incident highlights a stark gap between Amazon's aggressive public AI messaging and internal employee skepticism about actual output quality. It reflects a broader industry backlash against AI-generated low-quality content across major tech platforms.