Because juniors don't know when they're being taken down a rabbit hole. So they'll let the LLM go too deep in its hallucinations.

I have a Jr that was supposed to deploy a terraform module I built. This task has been hanging out for a while so I went to check in on them. They told me the problem they're having and asked me to take a look.

Their repo is a disaster, it's very obvious claude took them down a rabbit hole just from looking. When I asked, "Hey, why is all this python in here? The module has it self contained" and they respond with "I don't know, claude did that" affirming my assumptions.

They lack the experience and they're overly reliant on the LLM tools. Not just in the design and implementation phases but also for troubleshooting. And if you're troubleshooting with something that's hallucinating and you don't know enough to know it's hallucinating you're in for a long ride.

Meanwhile the LLM tools have taken away a lot of the type of work I hated doing. I can quickly tell when the LLM is going down a rabbit hole (in most cases at least) and prevent it from continuing. It's kinda re-lit my passion for coding and building software. So that's ended up in me producing more and giving better results.

> I don't know, claude did that

I'm the type of reviewer that actually reads code and asks probing questions, and I've heard this from junior and senior devs alike. It's maddening how people say this with a straight face and expect to keep their jobs. If people are pushing code they don't understand, they're liability to their team, product, and employer.

Unfortunately, the type of work you hate doing is perfect for a junior. Easy tasks to get a hold on the system.

> I don't know, claude did that

also likes to blame shop accidents on the table saw

The deciding factor for being able to effectively utilize LLMs and dodge hallucinations is ability to read code and intuition for how a solution should look. I think juniors are especially hesitant to just dig into understanding some source code unless they have no other choice, e.g. preferring to wait on email response from the author of the code over piecing things together.

This makes LLM tools so tempting, you don't even have to wait on the email response anymore! But of course, this is basically going in blind, and it's no wonder that they end up in hallucination mazes.

It’s like having a malicious mentor. But the frequency of which I’m bailing on reviews on the first line due to stupid stuff that has made it to a commit is quite stunning.

“Oh I thought that would be useful at some point so I just committed it.”

Beating it into developers that they need to review their own work they submit before asking someone else to waste time is the best way I’ve found so far.

I think a lot of the problems lies in their prompting. AI is usually at its worst when just saying «deploy terraform module». And off it goes spitting out code.

What they should have done as juniors was to have a conversation about the topic and task first. «Help me understand …» learning and planning is especially important with LLM coding.