This part toward the end of the article resonated with me:

> If you’re being asked to review huge volumes of terrible AI code, just assume that the organisation is going to burn you out and fire you. You will not convince the person drowning you in 2000 line PRs to stop. Start looking for a new job as if you have already been fired. I have seen this happen many times now

I suspect we will see this phenomenon more and more as organizations more widely adopt agentic development.

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nfg 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t buy it - if you’re an engineering leader and this is happening it’s your responsibility to get out there and fix the problem through education, process improvements, improved automated quality checks, better planning. Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “no!” is not a sustainable strategy. Figure out what would allow your throughput to double, triple etc and go organise it. Focus on bottlenecks and the most difficult pieces. I’m speaking from active experience here.

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hliyan 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Thankfully it's not happening in my organization because we happen to have a sane, incremental strategy. But it's telling that you perceive any criticism of AI code reviewer burnout as "sticking your fingers in your ears". Perhaps you might benefit from a closer read of the article.

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nfg 5 hours ago | parent [-]

« it's telling that you perceive any criticism of AI code reviewer burnout as "sticking your fingers in your ears" »

Go back and re-read the quote from your comment - which I responded to: “ You will not convince the person drowning you in 2000 line PRs to stop. Start looking for a new job as if you have already been fired.”

I’m not overreacting to some nuanced take here. I’m not sure how to characterise quitting as a response to over-enthusiasm / slop as anything other than the career equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears. I’ve been there, I’ve had the arguments, I have little sympathy for staff/principal engineers or above who react like this - their job is to fix the organisation, put a yoke around the beast of AI and find a way to tap the benefits and use the problems (like those 2000 line PRs) as a golden signal for where you need to educate and improve process and planning.

Again - I’m not selling anything here, I just have found it an interesting challenge over the last year and one where I’ve been happy to make progress organisationally despite the frustrating moments. If someone’s response to a problem like this is to throw their hands up in despair or to engage in whatever the logical opposite of AI-hype is (which the article resorts to repeatedly) then yes I’d worry about being laid off. If you’re in an organisation where you don’t have the agency to fix problems then absolutely - start looking for a new job.

	▲	oytis 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think the author means if it happens regularly, and asking people to stop doesn't work or marks you as a dangerous dissident. Obviously, it is wrong to quit in response to one person doing something stupid

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SpicyLemonZest 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

One of the key things I've needed to educate people on is that code contributions are no longer valuable in and of themselves. Someone who produces a large volume of bad code does not have high throughput that needs to be allowed, they have low throughput that needs to be corrected. High throughput in software is now almost entirely about having the right ideas and analysis.

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osmsucks 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm in this quote and I don't like it.