How do you justify your salary given that you're just using OSS compiler/editor any of us could use for free in your role ?
AI just changed how I edit code - I still see coworkers (senior developers) failing with Claude/Codex and get stuck when there are trivial solutions if you understand the full problem space. Right now AI is just a productivity tool.
Please see Ben Evans’ podcast on a good take on this. Coding is just one of the task you do in your job, it is not the job or at least it probably is not. You do not get paid to code, you get paid to make a set of decisions that create value to the company. If this is automated then yes sadly your salary is not justified.
Someone competent using them is today a requirement and for awhile will make the marginal utility of skilled workers greater than that of unskilled. The justification is that they are much more productive than they were before.
You can build things quickly with AI, but you can’t delegate your responsibilities to AI. Once the AI starts struggling, you’ll need to takeover and figure it out.
They're using a tool that anyone can use for $20 an hour, sure. But that's not what they're "just" doing. This is what is so insane about non-technical people talking about code - writing the actual syntax is not really the hard part.
What you're saying is like "how do you justify your salary as a NASA engineer when anyone can use Simulink and generate the code?"
Because the tool will happily give you a "solution" that kinda works for a few inputs. It will happily correct itself when you give it more incorrect tests.
It will almost never converge on the general solution that will pass tests you haven't given it yet.
This is why AI is sooo good at Javascript and related slop. A solution that "kinda works" is good enough 9 times out of 10 and if some tests fail well ... YOLO and the web page will probably render anyway.
Contrast that to using Scheme or Lisp where AI will have trouble simply keeping the parentheses balanced.
How do you justify your salary given that you're just using OSS compiler/editor any of us could use for free in your role ?
AI just changed how I edit code - I still see coworkers (senior developers) failing with Claude/Codex and get stuck when there are trivial solutions if you understand the full problem space. Right now AI is just a productivity tool.
Please see Ben Evans’ podcast on a good take on this. Coding is just one of the task you do in your job, it is not the job or at least it probably is not. You do not get paid to code, you get paid to make a set of decisions that create value to the company. If this is automated then yes sadly your salary is not justified.
> Coding is just one of the task[s] you do in your job
But it's by far the most fun part and the only reason to take such a job...
Which episode ?
Someone competent using them is today a requirement and for awhile will make the marginal utility of skilled workers greater than that of unskilled. The justification is that they are much more productive than they were before.
You can build things quickly with AI, but you can’t delegate your responsibilities to AI. Once the AI starts struggling, you’ll need to takeover and figure it out.
They're using a tool that anyone can use for $20 an hour, sure. But that's not what they're "just" doing. This is what is so insane about non-technical people talking about code - writing the actual syntax is not really the hard part.
What you're saying is like "how do you justify your salary as a NASA engineer when anyone can use Simulink and generate the code?"
It is extremely ignorant.
They don't need to justify it!
no engineers on staff and stakeholders think the company is incompetent
Coinbase is paying the price for that for every UX glitch, after the CEO was gleeful about HR personnel shipping production code
Because the tool will happily give you a "solution" that kinda works for a few inputs. It will happily correct itself when you give it more incorrect tests.
It will almost never converge on the general solution that will pass tests you haven't given it yet.
This is why AI is sooo good at Javascript and related slop. A solution that "kinda works" is good enough 9 times out of 10 and if some tests fail well ... YOLO and the web page will probably render anyway.
Contrast that to using Scheme or Lisp where AI will have trouble simply keeping the parentheses balanced.
To be fair, take away a human's paren highlighting and see how well they do.
Not everyone is a "coder" you know, some of us are engineers.