My disillusionment comes from the feeling I am just cosplaying my job. There is nothing to distinguish one cosplayer from another. I am just doordashing software, at this point, and I'm not in control.

I don’t get this at all. I’m using LLM’s all day and I’m constantly having to make smart architectural choices that other less experienced devs won’t be making. Are you just prompting and going with whatever the initial output is, letting the LLM make decisions? Every moderately sized task should start with a plan, I can spend hours planning, going off and thinking, coming back to the plan and adding/changing things, etc. Sometimes it will be days before I tell the LLM to “go”. I’m also constantly optimising the context available to the LLM, and making more specific skills to improve results. It’s very clear to me that knowledge and effort is still crucial to good long term output… Not everyone will get the same results, in fact everyone is NOT getting the same results, you can see this by reading the wildly different feedback on HN. To some LLM’s are a force multiplier while others claim they can’t get a single piece of decent output…

I think the way you’re using these tools that makes you feel this way is a choice. You’re choosing to not be in control and do as little as possible.