Why AI Hasn't Replaced Software Engineers, and Won't
Hacker News (AI keywords)3 days agoOpinionBased only on the title, this appears to be a commentary on the limits of AI in software engineering. It likely argues that coding is only one part of the engineering role, while judgment, system design, debugging, product context, and accountability remain human-centered. The piece is relevant to developers and technical leaders evaluating AI coding tools without assuming full automation is imminent.
Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
Hacker News (AI keywords)4 days agoCommentaryAn 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.
Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers
Hacker News (AI keywords)5 days agoOpinionThe post explores the phenomenon of "AI rockstar developers" who use AI tools to write code at breakneck speed. While appearing highly productive, they often introduce significant technical debt and architectural mess. The author highlights the growing burden on teams to clean up this AI-generated code, emphasizing the need for rigorous code review and architectural oversight.
Replies to Comments on "LLMs Are Eroding My Career"★ 75
Hacker News (AI keywords)6 days agoCommentaryThe author addresses widespread feedback on their viral post about LLMs eroding the software engineering career. They counter the "just don't use it" argument by explaining how industry expectations have already shifted. The post highlights why reviewing AI-generated code is more cognitively exhausting than writing it, and warns about the long-term impact on junior developers' skill acquisition.
LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do
Hacker News (AI keywords)7 days agoOpinionThe author argues that LLMs are eroding three pillars of his software engineering career: domain knowledge, debugging skill, and architecture judgment. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Codex, MCP, Sentry MCP, and DataDog MCP increasingly handle design, implementation, and difficult production bugs. The essay frames this as a labor-market concern, not just a tooling debate: if expertise becomes promptable, engineers may struggle to remain differentiated.
Harness engineering: Leveraging Codex in an agent-first world★ 76
Hacker News (AI keywords)9 days agoCommentaryOpenAI describes an internal experiment where Codex generated an entire product codebase from an empty repository. The post argues that engineers shift from writing code to designing environments, constraints, documentation, and feedback loops. Key practices include repo-local knowledge, mechanical architecture enforcement, agent-readable UI and observability, lightweight PR flow, and continuous cleanup.