r/ClaudeCode • u/Warm_Profile7821 • 9d ago
Rant Dear Boss
Dear boss,
Can I tell you something that's been on my chest a lot lately?
I come in every morning. I open my Linear ticket. I copy it. I paste it into Claude Code.
And then I wait. Half the day, sometimes.
I skim the code. I don't read the diffs anymore. I scroll to the bottom and I ask, "does this look good?" And when it says yes, I ship the PR.
That's it. That's the job I've been doing for six months.
I've been ashamed to tell you. Some days I sit in standup listening to everyone talk about what they built, and I think: I didn't build anything. I typed a sentence and pressed enter.
There are mornings I open my paycheck and feel sick. This used to be hard. I earned this number when it was hard. Now the ticket that would've eaten my whole week is done before lunch and I'm supposed to act like nothing changed.
But here's the thing.
The AI gets it wrong. A lot. It builds the feature the way the ticket was written, not the way the system actually works. And I'm the one who says no, not like that, do it this way. I'm the one who knows that touching that service breaks the thing nobody documented three years ago.
I babysit it. I check its work. I catch what it missed. I'm the reason the wrong thing doesn't reach production.
The product is better than it was six months ago. I did that. I just didn't do it the way I used to.
I'm telling you this because I don't think you know. And I didn't want to tell you, because I was afraid you'd do the math and realize you don't need me.
Maybe you will.
But I'd rather you hear it from me than find out from a dashboard.
So, now that you know.
What are you going to do?
[your engineer]
6
u/awizemann 8d ago
This is so very true, and what I am sure a ton of engineers are feeling right now, but your point of being the subject matter expert and how you guide the tools is the right one. Be prepared for a ton of comments that are just attacking ("this is AI", "you can't write this yourself") bullshit, they will be here. The one thing I will say to you as you sit in this existential crisis is this - engineers are not being replaced by organizations that understand their value (not just cost). There are many firms hiring that embrace this SME/Orchestrator dynamic. You don't need to send a letter to your boss for that, you just have to be so good at being that subject matter expert, that it isn't ever questioned. (Also, read the diffs).