AI makes weak engineers less harmful

4 hours ago

AI, particularly frontier LLMs like Claude Code, raises the floor for weak software engineers by reducing net-negative output and improving code quality.
Strong engineers outperform by managing talent distribution, but AI now helps weak engineers produce functional, though imperfect, code instead of obviously broken code.
Working with weak engineers using AI is akin to interacting with an LLM over Slack—annoying but still better than dealing with direct incompetence.
This trend may lead to companies questioning the value some engineers add, potentially resulting in job losses for those who merely act as intermediaries for AI.
The phenomenon is limited to weak engineers; strong engineers do not rely on AI in this way, as they can catch AI-generated errors themselves.

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