My friend is a CTO at a non-tech company and he's now dealing with code from non-SWEs trying to self serve with LLMs.

But it's like a kid running a lemonade stand. Total DIY weekend project quality stuff that they are demanding go live. Hardcoded credentials, no concept of dev/qa/prod environments, no logging, no tests, no source control.

I'm not really sure teaching basic SWE practices / SDLC / system design to people whose day job is like.. accounting makes sense compared to just accelerating developer productivity.

It’s the same dilemma as old: it’s easier to teach a doctor UML than a coder Doctoring. But, critically, that’s about making doctor-facing IT systems not performing their skilled jobs.

Bringing code does not help, but a validated user story with flow diagrams, a UI suggestion, and a valid ticket could. That’s the bridge to gap.

Were I that CTO I’d explain that code carries liability, SWEs can end up in jail for malfeasance, fines, penalties, and lawsuits are what awaits us for eff-ups. “Coders” get fired if their code doesn’t work. Same speech to the devs, do exactly as much unsolicited Accounting as you wanna get fired for. Talk fences, good neighbours.

No, you should have forward deployed engineers sitting and working right beside these traditional non SW roles if you need to fully integrate AI into their mix.