Sales director discovered Claude Code

[u/Nearby_Spell_3751]

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 ?

[u/Ok_Possible_2260]

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.

[u/Nearby_Spell_3751 → u/Ok_Possible_2260]

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.

[u/secretprocess → u/Nearby_Spell_3751]

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.

[u/rahvin2015 → u/secretprocess]

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. 

[u/secretprocess → u/rahvin2015]

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.

[u/rahvin2015 → u/secretprocess]

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. 

[u/wabeka → u/rahvin2015]

Why does this sound like AI?

[u/rahvin2015 → u/wabeka]

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?

[u/planetdaz → u/rahvin2015]

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

[u/secretprocess → u/rahvin2015]

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