u/justoffthebeatenpath

Basically title. 8 YOE. I am realizing more and more as I build more agent loops and have more things running in parallel that AI has trivialized the part of software engineering that I enjoyed most, which is coding and deeply understanding systems. Prior to getting laid off at big tech, I could take my time and AI-ify the parts of the work that I wanted to automate (i.e. huge chunks of boilerplate). My bottleneck in this environment was not coding, so I could really pick and choose what I used AI with.

After getting laid off and pretty grueling interview process which involved 8 onsites and a not great offer reneg (from me) to a 996, I joined a startup where I've been for a few months. They build an AI tool, are 100% AI first, and have encouraged me to chat with their agent instead of talking with folks for a walkthrough. Fair enough, I can change, so I've very much embraced the new world. At any given time (when I am on my computer) I have at least 2 or 3 agents working in parallel on stuff.

At first it felt very powerful to have this productivity, but what I am now spending 90% of my time on is reviewing PRs and doing QA on the output of these LLMs, and sometimes embarrassing myself in reviews since the understanding of the LLM was not correct (and partly my fault for not asking the agent more about the codebase so I can fully understand the problem a-priori). I deeply do not enjoy this work, it doesn't feel fulfilling and it is draining. This is coming from someone who, prior to the OpenAI / Anthropic ascendency, was very very interested and actively involved in AI research!

Additionally, where the company is positioned against it's competitors it feels like a lost cause. I feel like I have job security as probably 10 to 15% of the company has left within the last couple of months, but if we don't raise things won't bode well.

What are people doing to find more joy in this work, while maintaining productivity that's on par with peers? Are there fields that are "too hard" for LLMs to work on or reason about? At this point I'm considering transitioning to either the medical field or a skilled trade, but I know that I'm probably better off sticking in my current career.

I have heard the answer of having an outside life, or having hobbies, and I do have them and they do help! I need to be able to find fulfillment inside of 8 hours a day 5 days a week though.

Decklist

Hello r/EDH, I'm tired of deckbuilding to win and I'd rather deckbuild as a tribute to our amazing and highly functional medical system. I'd like a bit of help improving this one. I swear I tried to use all search capabilities at my disposal to see if someone else had made a similar deck, but I could not find one.

Currently the [[Fourteenth Doctor]] and [[Clara Oswald]] are at the helm, since I really just wanted to maximize the number of doctor or medical system specific cards via five colors and the Fourteenth Doctor has Doctor in the name. I'm open to a change if it's on the nose.

My current list of physicians are:

[[Doctor Jane Foster]]

[[Doctor Strange, Surgeon]]

[[Moonstone, Harsh Mistress]]

[[Cult Healer]]

[[Arcade Gannon]]

[[Doc Samson, Super Psychiatrist]]

[[The Fugitive Doctor]]

[[Dr. Eggman]]

[[Hua Tuo, Honored Physician]]

[[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]]

I would like to improve the number of doctor sounding people in the deck. I am trying to not include the Doctor Who doctors, since they are not board certified. I'm pretty happy with this list, but would love to get more suggestions if I missed a physician somewhere.

This being a functional hospital, the doctors of course have support staff. This is one of the areas that I'd like to see improvement.

[[Organ Hoarder]]

[[Plague Nurse]]

[[Stitcher Geralf]]

[[Strax, Sontaran Nurse]]

[[Soul Warden]]

[[Suture Priest]]

[[Soul's Attendant]]

We're definitely hiring in this area.

Another area I'd like help in is the interaction. I'd like to make them less generically good and more relevant to the medical profession.

[[Disfigure]]

[[Mortify]]

[[Ossification]]

[[Murderous Cut]]

[[Disallow]]

[[Infectious Bite]]

[[An Offer You Can't Refuse]]

[[Toxic Deluge]]

[[Snuff Out]]

Of course we have the billing department, which like the medical system, is I think pretty good at collections as it stands, but more billing means more $$$.

[[Monologue Tax]]

[[Rent Is Due]]

[[Debt to the Deathless]]

[[Windfall]]

[[Revel in Riches]]

[[Rev, Tithe Extractor]]

[[Smothering Tithe]]

I also do not care if the cards are total dogshit. Honestly the worse they are, the better.

AI has hollowed out the thing I enjoyed about software engineering. Any less automated software fields, or tips on surviving?

Need help building five color American Medical System Tribal