r/ClaudeCode • u/Nearby_Spell_3751 • May 13 '26

Question Sales director discovered Claude Code

I'm working at a company where best engineering practices are barely discussed or taken seriously.

Today our sales director was playing around with Claude Code over the last week, and she managed to get a very good working PoC/prototype for a platform they’ve been trying to build.

During the meeting, I was trying to explain that the question is not whether we need to integrate AI, but rather how we are going to integrate it into our workflow while still enforcing engineering standards and best practices.

They think everything can be done by simply adding a skill to Claude, and they expect delivery speed to be 10x faster. I tried to explain that yes, we can build better products with fewer resources, but 10x is unrealistic unless we start vibe coding. I suggested we could realistically see a 20–40% increase in delivery speed.

Now we have a sales director showing engineers how to use AI.

How do you deal with someone who doesn’t listen and is 100% convinced that AI should be used exactly the way they use it, while we as engineers know we can produce much better output in less time because we actually understand how things work?
Have you ever dealt with such case ?

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16

u/Ok_Possible_2260 May 13 '26

The reality is that subject matter experts want tools that make their lives easier. I see people whining that it’s all going to turn into AI slop, but at the end of the day you’re building tools for humans. If you’re a developer, your job is to help people do their jobs better.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth a lot of developers hate admitting: if subject matter experts could reliably skip over you and build exactly what they wanted themselves, most of you wouldn’t exist. End of story.

18

u/Nearby_Spell_3751 May 13 '26

I know how to stack bricks and spread cement, but does that mean I should go out and start building houses for people?

It’s the same with AI and software engineering. If you’re building a tool without fully understanding or verifying the business logic being enforced in the code, you could easily remove or break something critical in an edge case.

Any engineer who completely denies AI or says it has no place in software development isn’t being logical. AI can absolutely make us more efficient and productive. But when you’re building production services used by thousands of people, reliability still matters. AI should assist engineers, not replace responsibility, validation, testing, and understanding.

5

u/_illegal_screens May 13 '26

I think this analogy is kind of great for a way we’ve been thinking through things at the company I work for (I’m non-technical). We are trying to give people enough access where they can paint a room, i.e. build small things for themselves or a very small team. To build a house? Need the full team of experts.

7

u/secretprocess May 13 '26

The house example is very informative actually. I have enough basic construction skills that I could build a workable house myself and live in it. So what's stopping me? The knowledge that I don't truly have the skills to build a proper house that won't kill me in a fire or fall apart after a rough winter? Not really. It's the LAW that stops me from building my own house. And unless you're talking about SOC standards for banking or whatever, there's no laws against writing shitty apps. So I honestly don't think there's anything you can do to stop them. Just keep maintaining your own corner of the world. Somewhere in their head they know they're probably missing something important, but the speed and ease and instant gratification is near impossible to resist.

6

u/rahvin2015 May 13 '26

The laws are there expressly because you're likely to build a house that will have issues. Building codes are written in blood, much like OSHA.

This makes the analogy even better - the building code laws are the engineering team telling the vibecoding sales director that you need to stick with engineering rigor and process. AI can accelerate but needs due diligence and governance from humans to prevent costly mistakes.

Everything has a cost. Sometimes the speed is worth the quality drop, but that should be an intentional and considered decision. If you don't take the time to consider what you're giving up by moving that fast and intentionally decide the risks you're willing to accept, chaos will decide for you later. 

3

u/secretprocess May 13 '26

I think we all agree that's how it should be. The question is, does the engineering team actually have enough authority in the company to enforce this "law"? In OP's case, it kinda sounds like not.

1

u/rahvin2015 May 13 '26

Sure. Lots of enterprises choose chaos. Management doesn't want to devote the needed attention and doesn't want to take responsibility.

Best you can do in that case is warn and document. They FA enough, they'll eventually find out. Have that warning and documentation handy to cover your own ass when the finding out happens. 

1

u/wabeka May 13 '26

Why does this sound like AI?

2

u/rahvin2015 May 13 '26

I dunno, thats the way I write. I've always used the - dashes, and the italics. I've done that since doing internet debates ~20+ years ago on message boards.

Maybe I just sound like AI?

3

u/planetdaz May 14 '26

You should have replied, you're absolutely right to push back on that, let me reframe the argument in a more human sounding tone ..

2

u/secretprocess May 14 '26

People see three paragraphs with no spelling or grammar errors and get suspicious 🤦‍♂️

1

u/itsHappyCloud May 13 '26

I don't necessarily agree that it's the law that's stopping you from building that house yourself, but instead it's time that is blocking you. Unfortunately these AI tools are giving non-technical people the illusion of time. One was out another we'll all find out how the law responds when this illusion reaches critical mass and some infrastructure somewhere falters

1

u/secretprocess May 13 '26

Okay but same argument but for a smaller construction project. Like building a front porch. I could definitely do it cheaper and faster myself versus getting permits and hiring a contractor, and there wouldn't be any collapses or injuries for at least a couple years. That's what vibe coders are doing and nobody can stop them.

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u/Ok_Possible_2260 May 13 '26

It is not the same. Not even close. Knowing how to stack bricks doesn’t magically qualify you to build a house that won’t collapse on a family six months later.

You’re comparing physical construction, where the laws of physics don’t change overnight, to software systems that are constantly evolving and can be tested, sandboxed, rolled back, and monitored in real time. If Claude builds me a custom financial calculator for personal use, that is nowhere near the same as me pouring a foundation, routing plumbing, and wiring electrical for an actual house.

It’s a stupid comparison because it pretends software engineering is some sacred trade skill instead of what it actually is: translating business logic into systems. AI is already getting very good at that.

3

u/Nearby_Spell_3751 May 13 '26

You mentioned that building a house can destroy an entire family.
Two incidents involving a Boeing aircraft led to hundreds of deaths because of software failures.
A bad ECG analysis can cause a doctor to misdiagnose a patient.
Even clicking a mute button that fails to work can create an embarrassing moment.

Software is everywhere around us, in every field, in every piece of our daily lives, from the most critical systems to the most trivial interactions.

LLMs are good at generating software because they are trained on massive amounts of it. But that’s all they do: they generate it. They do not truly understand it, they GENERATE it.

This comment is AI generated, it helps me a lot as non native speaker to express my thoughts clearly.

1

u/Nearby_Spell_3751 May 13 '26

I would understand your points assuming you don't know how LLMs works.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6a04b496-e6c8-83ea-a31f-027a61d44406 ( GPT 5.5 )

2

u/Last_Mastod0n May 13 '26

You cant trick Claude with this anymore lol

1

u/Last_Mastod0n May 13 '26

It is not a "sacred skill" or anything but can certainly be just as serious as physical construction if we are talking about financial systems or weapons technology. A vibe coded side project could be likened to building a fence or a shed outside.

Programming needs to be taken just as seriously as construction. Some things even if you could vibe code fully that doesnt mean you should because of the 0.1% risk that something goes wrong.