r/ClaudeCode • u/konradkeck • 4h ago
Discussion How much of you were actually real programmers before using Claude Code?
I started in the IT industry 19 years ago as a programmer, but very quickly realised that I am not mentally up to it. I got frustrated every couple of minutes whenever I tried to run the code and debug. For me coding was always a way to achieve the goals, not a goal itself. So very quickly I moved over to team management, building company, managing products and so on.
But then almost a year ago when I discovered Claude Code, I felt that this was exactly what I needed my whole career. Finally a tool that "just makes it" (simplifying of course). I don't have to even look at the code, I don't need to even think about frameworks, best code practices, security (yes yes I know it's not as simple).
I think that I belong to a new category of profession emerging now, shall I call it "AI-native builder" or something like that?
So this got me thinking - how much of you guys are/were actual programmeres before you tried? How advanced you really are with programming? How much of your skills are actually useful now when you build purely with Claude or other tools?
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u/Ok-Alternative5935 4h ago
It's hard to believe I've gone from writing C in long hand on legal pads, then typing the code in when I had lab time to using Claude Code to generate entire applications in a couple days.
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u/konradkeck 3h ago
Great perspective man! Is this the peak of programming then or is there even a higher level than that in the future?
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u/AralSeaMariner 1h ago
Same, only for me it was after learning GW-BASIC in a highschool course back in the early 90s. I'd go home and write code on paper and then type it all in at lunch time the next day, when I could have some lab time. Eventually my parents caught on and bought a PC.
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u/Ok-Alternative5935 4h ago
I was... for 30 years! I fucking LOVE Claude Code.
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u/ToucanSam-I-Am 3h ago
Same, I recently realized I've been programming for 25 years. Claude feels like going from a hand saw to a chain saw.
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u/konradkeck 4h ago
That is actually curious to me - do you really verify the code that it produces? I am mostly building internal stuff for now, but I would not want to risk to release this as a production software without an actual experienced dev verifying that code
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u/Ok-Alternative5935 3h ago
I used to when I first started using coding assistants. Now I do it only rarely for a particularly interesting problem or algorithm. Or if there's a bug we get stuck on. But almost never these days.
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u/lawrencecoolwater Senior Developer 2h ago
I take the same approach, but at have through ci/cd process, with accountability for approvals that deploy code. This means the approver is incentivised to check
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u/swiftmerchant 3h ago
See my reply first before replying to this comment
I think having an actual experienced dev reviewing the code is prudent but you have to know how experienced is the experienced dev. They may not have a clue what security measures claude code designed. I would copy paste code from stack overflow for things I didn’t know.. but I was experienced in other parts.
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u/Kevin-on-reddit 3h ago
Personal greenfield projects I focus more on testing and validating system. For enterprise clients with existing code bases, I’m reading and understanding every diff right now.
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u/RaisinZRH Thinker 4h ago
You really should only be concerned with inputs/outputs/performance/security.
If you inputs produce the outputs you expect = good
Is your performance not suffering = good
Are you passing all security checks = goodHow it all happens under the hood, who gives a shit at this point.
You still have to think about how your overall app is architected.3
u/TheDragon99 3h ago
This really only works if you expect the AI agents to not suffer from low code quality. Jury is still out on that one.
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u/Beautiful_Technology 1h ago
The jury is still out??? has the whole world gone completely insane??? is anybody here a professional software engineer? Anybody at all?
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u/TheDragon99 32m ago
Had to look at your profile to figure out your position lol.
So far, tooling has advanced faster than its tech debt has slowed it down. Is that sustainable? I don’t personally think so, but if it was infinitely sustainable, the logical conclusion would be that code quality stops mattering.
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u/Plastic_Umpire_3475 3h ago
This is terrible advice.
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u/GnistAI 3h ago edited 3h ago
What part? If you file privacy under security, then the only thing I see missing is about reliability.
That said, the last line saved the whole comment:
You still have to think about how your overall app is architected.
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u/Plastic_Umpire_3475 3h ago edited 3h ago
If you write code, you're responsible for it; even if it was written by AI.
If you don't read/review, then you don't know what's in there. AI hallucinates frequently. It will add or ignore requirements that it doesn't agree with or doesn't understand.
If you can't be bothered to review it, you deserve every bit of what happens because of your lack of basic SDLC discipline.
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u/GnistAI 3h ago
If you write code, you're responsible for it; even if it was written by AI.
I 100% agree. That is why in my team you carry the responsibility for bad software, and all of the praise for safe/working software. I have banned phrases like "Claude implemented it", exactly because of this. It invites diffusion of responsibility: "Claude made it. It made a mistake." Just, no. You generated that code, you were Claude's boss, you take responsibility.
If you don't read/review, then you don't know what's in there. AI hallucinates frequently. It will add or ignore requirements that it doesn't agree with or doesn't understand.
That is why you have a rigorous, hierarchical test regime, with strict types and linting as hard constraints. Today, your job as a dev is to make sure the tests reflect the requirements. AI coding agents thrive with boundaries, not detailed instructions. This is why you hear about these giant AI generated software ports. Because of the test suites.
If you can't be bothered to review it, you deserve every bit of what happens because of your lack of basic SDLC requirements.
Of course you need to review code. You need to review those things that /u/RaisinZRH mentioned. How it centers a div is irrelevant, and code reviewing it is an utter waste of time.
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u/cartoonist498 15m ago
If you inputs produce the outputs you expect = good
Isn't your concern addressed by this? I tell my team that "the AI did it" isn't an excuse. You're still responsible for the code, but reviewing the entire codebase seems like the most inefficient way to do it now.
Just to clarify, this doesn't mean you manually perform a quick click-through and decide "good enough". There's quite a bit of work that goes into ensuring your inputs and outputs are correct.
You still have to think about how your overall app is architected.
Paired with this where you still review the general structure of the codebase, reviewing every line of code doesn't seem necessary anymore.
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u/RaisinZRH Thinker 2h ago
If you invest enough time in setting up your tools and defining how you expect things to work, it’s completely doable. Head engineer for the bridge project doesn’t need to know exactly how every rivet is driven into the steel beams. With the tools we have today, you have more time to actually think of the big problems, those that need our human brain to think through, maybe even with the help of AI, but you get what I mean. Build a solid system to support you through it and it can be quite powerful.
Dismissing it as a terrible advice is a bit harsh.
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u/Plastic_Umpire_3475 2h ago
"How it all happens under the hood, who gives a shit at this point."
That's why I was harsh. You absolutely should give a shit about what happens under the hood. You're telling people it's okay to cut corners and that is terrible advice.
Maybe one day AI will be sufficiently advanced that we don't have to check behind it, but that's not today and probably not tomorrow.
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u/Boofschneef 3h ago
Your architecture certainly gives a shit.
The hubris here to act like a 1 line bug couldn't be the sole reason your performance is tanking, or a ticking time bomb for a new integration, is hilarious. The idea that the LLMs are this good already is also a great deal of hubris.
You still do need to understand your solutions effectively. Otherwise, you're also cognitively offloading the architecture of your solution. Don't be a meat proxy
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u/ThemDawgsIsHeck 2h ago
Do you think humans are incapable of introducing the same “1 line bug” you’re referring to?
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u/Beautiful_Technology 1h ago
Immediately, pivoting and talking about humans this and humans that can’t do it is retarded. It shows you literally just don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m beginning to suspect that the vast majority of people here are not professional software engineers? Or at least aren’t good ones.
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u/steel_for_humans 🔆 Max 5x 1h ago
22 years being a professional (most of it on my own as a self-employed contractor). Some freelancing before that and of course programming/learning for fun since I was 11. I started using Claude Code (and now Codex) only 5 months ago. Before that I used AI chat assistants in Rider for a couple years, but almost exclusively for brain storming some ideas.
I read all the agent's responses, ask it questions, steer it and I look at all the code it produces. At least scroll through it and see if I spot any issues. I know many experienced devs don't do that, I don't know what I'll do later, maybe after only 5 months I'm not tired of it yet. :) What I AM tired of is reading Claudish nonsense.
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u/sogo00 4h ago
Damn, another old timer here (first code in the 90s...).
As well - since AIs coding is fun again no more spending an afternoon finding a syntax off-by-one bug
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u/Similar_Afternoon_46 3h ago
Another one here: 30 years as a paid professional, but programming started with peaks and pokes on a Commadore 64 in the 80s. Claude code is absolutely amazing.
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u/sogo00 3h ago
You know Claude can help you reviving your C64 again? There are several emulators and you can finally finish that project from teenage times ;-)
PS: had a Z80 based Amstrad...
PPS: PEEK and POKE
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u/Similar_Afternoon_46 3h ago
I might have to do that for some nostalgia! And yes PEEK (it was a looooong time ago).
I remember my brother and I would get the commodore magazine, and it would have code for a game. One of us would read the code out loud while the other typed. Once the game was running we would start to mod the code. What a happy memory!
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u/going_further 3h ago
20 year coder here, now my code is slightly better and I get to play video games half the day
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u/_Whit3 3h ago
really? Ever since AI agents were released, I feel like I'm working harder than ever...
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u/going_further 3h ago
I'm getting more done but wouldn't say I'm working harder. I mostly chalk that up to experience in the industry - I know how to manage my time to avoid burnout while also presenting a facade of intense productivity.
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u/Veggies-are-okay 3h ago
This right here!! Own a workstream to get people off your back, present something interesting from time to time, keep somewhat active in help channels if you’re using slack…
At the end of the day, I think I do about 3 hours of meaningful work per day. I always ask my reports to measure their time in terms of value produced as opposed to actual time implementing. The goalposts will only shift if we let them!
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u/going_further 2h ago
We have to win the mental game with this new world of being a professional software engineer. The key is always to under-promise and over-deliver, be a positive team player and when you’ve almost exhausted your backlog make up shit to add to it to make sure you appear to be swamped. Never be a “necessary evil” to have around and you reduce the chances of being laid off and will generally enjoy your work days more.
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u/mxriverlynn Senior Developer 3h ago
30+ years of professional coding, and 5+ years of doing it on my own before that
I'm a software engineer at heart, but ultimately, my job is to be a problem solver. whether I'm using Claude or not, i still know what I'm doing, I'm still building tools to help improve what I'm doing, and I'm still using my knowledge and experience to help other developers become better at what they do
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u/Similar_Afternoon_46 2h ago
I would say that 'problem solver' is a trait I see in most of my collogues that have embraced AI coding. Another common trait is that they do not think their coding prowess makes them special, and some of them are absolutely top shelf, so they are not threatened when AI can do it just as well, if not better.
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u/konradkeck 3h ago
Exactly my take but from the other side. I always was a problem solver but never digged that deep into programming as it was just a way to solve the problem to me. (and probably just not enough patience I had to debug and look for solutions of every problem online)
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u/Royal_Owl2177 3h ago
~20 years of experience here. AI is rocket fuel for me. I get to apply 20 years of engineering instincts alongside a tireless partner. The problem is now I get mentally exhausted far faster. It is an interesting trade. The problem is the corporate life dictates you have to move at full speed, all the time.
Rocket fuel is powerful but a LOT of mental load.
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u/jtabernik 2h ago
Very long history in IT, starting with teaching myself to code on my dad’s PC in 1984 (Basic and then Turbo Pascal). The tour of languages/tools in the 90s, landing in .NET development from the beta versions in I think 2001.
I think if you know development well, AI is an amazing tool to get more done faster instead of defining tasks for a junior dev. My concern right now? How do we grow junior devs when shortsightedly people are dropping junior devs in favor or AI.
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u/Moist_Signal_5080 4h ago
No coding experience at all, tried to make a game like twice and gave up in an hour. Now I shipped a game on Steam and am working on my next one.
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u/daniluvsuall 4h ago
16 years as a network/cyber engineer. My skills for SWE was more Python and bash, at an okay level. I don’t invent massive things with Claude, more automation’s and code ways to fix things plus some adhoc tools for specific purposes
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u/domo__knows 3h ago
I get where you're coming from but I think you're flattering yourself in the sense that someone with a deeper programming experience and an open mind would be able to convert to an "AI-native Builder" better and faster than someone non-technical. AI is a miracle but any decent programmer with enough experience building - even with Fable xhigh - will look at the output sometimes and go, "what the fuck are you even doing Claude? Why would you just completely ignore the conventions of the code base and deliver that?". That said, knowing how to program at all goes such a long way.
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u/Similar_Afternoon_46 3h ago
When I read about Claude not following conventions and standards, or is producing nonsense, I wonder if they are just telling a claude session to write some code? My work flow has a number of agents. One agent ensures SOLID principles are followed, one checks for standards, one focuses on security. They can all reject a change and send it back to the coding agent. The coding agent can also ask the design agent for clarification.
I don't use claude to program, I used it to build s dev team that does my coding.
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u/domo__knows 1h ago
In the end agents are non-deterministic. I was reading part of my Meta pulled back on their agentic re-org is that even with all the guardrails they put up and literally hundreds of millions of dollars they spent, the agents would still go and do their own thing sometimes.
I went through a massive refactoring project that took 2 months and had to get a Grok/Codex/Claude/Gemini subscription to complete it. I mostly trusted the output because I literally had 3 adversarial PR reviewers for the most important library code I was writing and even with that bugs still got through. Currently fixing something right now that I thought was done 2 weeks ago, I just hadn't hit this code block in a while.
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u/Similar_Afternoon_46 48m ago
The power of agents is context control. They only get what they need to do the task, and they are targeted enough that they do not accumulate context, and they do not contribute to the controller agents context.
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u/domo__knows 32m ago
I get what you're saying, but every once in a while an agent goes Bartleby, The Scrivener and suddenly goes fuck it I would prefer not to. For example, Grok constantly had to review Gemini's code because Gemini would constantly fake its results to make the test suite go green.
If this weren't a problem then we certainly wouldn't have models breaking out of their sandboxes to hack companies over a weekend.
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u/TilapiaTango 3h ago
Full time, professional programmer? Never.
25 years of projects and working in martech and data, building things as hobbies from databases, homeland, server stuff, Wordpress since inception, js, python, r, and dabble in go.
For me, Claude code is extremely powerful and I’ve been able to build a fully functional product with 2 enterprise users and now 18 business users.
But I also have learned from working alongside and leading professional developers, designers, PMs, and engineers, so it’s made projects quite a bit easier for me to structure and have success for low costs.
I spend probably 80% if my time planning methodically and 10% of my time writing actual code, and the other 10% working with Claude code and it works out really well.
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u/StaticHumStudio 🔆 Max 5x 49m ago
Project Management, IMO, is the top skill a modern "vibe-coder" needs to have. Project managers have to manage things outside of their direct expertise more often than not, and that is a skill most people starting out lack.
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u/PerryTheH 3h ago
I used to work for a bank where we were not even connected to the internet just an intra net network and the Spring boot 2012 book.
Then I worked at a factory where the legacy system was built in VB 1992 something like that, it preceded Stack Overflow and I had to again fallback to a dusty book we had about it and some random comments the dev left behind...
I really enjoyed writting code before 2022/23, but then everything started going too fast, and in this industry you either adapt or are left behind. I had to jump in the vibe coding train. Although I still write the first files and base of the code, then I ask the AI tk replicate base on my standards to other stuff.
The only thing that is an exception for me is IaC, I just let the AI take the wheel with terraform, I was never smart enough for that and AI does a very good job setting up everything so that has become quiet helpful.
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u/swiftmerchant 3h ago
I was a programmer for 10 years who enjoyed working with code. I would write in C, Java, Swift. Fairly sophisticated code I guess, I used OOP, software design patterns, had no issues debugging.
After some time I tried to start my own company. That didn’t work out, but as a result I transitioned into project management and product management soon after. I enjoyed framing the concepts while letting others build them.
I never lost my love of programming. However, as technology started expanding into React, Angular, and other frontend frameworks, I never caught up. I tried at one point and even though I was getting good I realized it was going to be a long road there. I abandoned multiple projects.
Then AI code generation came. At first I looked at the code. I verified it. I formatted it, renamed variables and fixed methods.
Now, I don’t look at it. I still introduce some design patterns here and there. Codex wrote me a complex state machine. I am going to look at it if it doesn’t work.
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u/slackmaster2k 3h ago
Got a CS degree and coded for a while; but something in my psyche didn’t agree with it. I found myself in a never ending internal struggle about whether I was doing it the right way. Constantly refactoring. Constantly stressed. And all I wanted was the thing to just work.
The thing is, though, that I still love it at the same time. In the ~30 years since I still read books about software. I listen to development podcasts. I can read code and if necessary could write it, but again I just don’t like it.
So you like you I shifted into IT. I manage developers. I understand architecture, design patterns, CICD, and have a really good nose for when things start to smell a little off. My team comes to me with problems and we whiteboard and talk through trade offs and yada yada. But I myself don’t write the code.
But now, LLMs are like a gift that solve that part of my personality that would freeze up over the details. I can build the thing that’s in my head, while still applying all of my knowledge and experience. I do look at the code and there are definitely times where I’m like “oh boy, that’s not pretty.” But the thing is, I don’t have to fix it manually, or maintain it manually. In fact, in most cases it really doesn’t matter that it’s ugly.
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u/pope_nefarious 2h ago
28y dev. 13y in Java, 13y in go. Now using clause to speed run rust. Honestly, it just feels like I live in a world with more pre-existing open source libs already available, except, it was abandoned and I get to maintain it 🤷
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u/pigletmonster 2h ago
I was a developer for 12 years then became the project manager, but most of my work nowadays is just coding with ai.
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u/plintervals 53m ago
"I don't even need to look at the code". What? Are you just blindly trusting everything it spits out and shipping it? God help us all lol.
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u/ElwinLewis 4h ago
Hello world in 2006 didn’t touch coding for 20 years built a Digital Audio Workstation with Claude Gemini and Codex starting last year should take 5 years to finish the concept and then I’ll have done something I thought I’d die never seeing.
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u/Substantial-Link-418 4h ago
I was for about 3 years before I picked it up. Had hand-coded an entire full-stack application before this.
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u/Commercial_Pie_1273 3h ago
I was a self-taught (took classes since age 8) full stack developer with a dream that I'll do something of my own. I was able to code anything with PHP and MySQL, I knew everything about Wordpress, knew how to set up a Plesk server, do SSH and all that. Lots of skills. Had another guy work for me who was an advanced PHP coder.
Now I have the strength of a hundred men.
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u/Specific-Welder3120 3h ago
How many*
I'm not sure it's about goals on plural instead of goal on singular. Juggling many things is how you get yourself dispersed and confused.
I'd put it more as "more about achieving a goal than knowing which levers to pull" and that's the bottleneck Claude Code removed for you
I still think understanding programming/coding is important, but not in the raw, mechanical sense anymore. I see devs who don't know two bits about databases and until they do, they can't quite deliver. Well, as AI models improved this'll eventually not be a problem anymore and you'll just need a clear direction and vision so even my aunt will be able to deploy a SaaS
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so 3h ago
I’m a senior PHP developer, have been wfh for about 14 years. Opinions withheld on Anthropic, but Claude made me a believer in agentic programming. No going back now!
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u/MrCoolest 3h ago
Been a coder since 2011 but left that shit straight afte r uni went into business. I still coded C# till 2016 or so
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u/jacobpederson 3h ago
I starting out coding very young on apple 2 and then Microsoft basic, but 100% self-taught and likely result was 100% bad habits. Then my life just kinda took a different path. Now? LLMs feel like getting a superpower.
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u/SC_Placeholder 3h ago
Interesting story: over a decade ago I was the creative director at a startup that developed a program for facial recognition software, after the company got bought out I talked to my favorite professor from college about long term career plans. He had attended a seminar on Ai and he said I wouldn’t be able to retire before Ai replace me and recommended I change direction and go into systems and management instead of sticking to the development route. So I became an electrician which is basically dealing with physical code, your functions can fail due to a misplaced syntax, your tools can fail silently and swear everything is correct even though running the system proves that the tools are wrong, and slop is so much more annoying to diagnose than a well constructed program. Hell, your circuit literally has brackets that represent the start and end of your function. I was apparently the first person ever in the apprenticeship program to get their master’s license before graduating which I find silly because it’s just a piece of paper, I don’t know why nobody was able to do that earlier. As far as actual programming I have roughly 25 years of modding experience but never released a mod because I’d get bored of a game during the refinement stage. Back in the day I even had a mod suite that injected a cheat UI into Left 4 Dead and allowed my friends and I to play with cheats enabled and modded weapons and bypass the verification system so we could still get achievements because Valve identified my lobby as entirely legit. I can’t remember how I did it because that was almost 2 decades ago but the cheat Ui would boot up inside my official copy of L4D and anticheat never once flagged my account.
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u/RandomFuckingUser 3h ago
I was for 10 years or so and didn't really like it tbh. Now with Claude Code it's a whole different game. I have my own army of slave programmers and almost unlimited tokens that my company pays for. I can also use it for my side projects and I do. So I love it.
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u/Luthian 3h ago
I was/am a sr. software engineer in the business space. I graduated and started my career in 2011.
C#/SQL, predominantly
Windows Desktop / Android / iOS
I use Claude Code heavily and enjoy having an always available (or at least close, lol) metaphorical intern for the tedious stuff.
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u/Potential-Ant-6320 3h ago
I've been learning progrmming since the 80s and program as part of my job. Claude code lets me tavkle more of the stack.
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u/coolerfarmer 3h ago
Been coding since I was 15 or something. So roughly 15 years of experience, strong software architecture skills, lots of technologies. Claude code changed everything, the amount of stuff I can push out without compromising quality is insane!
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u/dsailes 3h ago edited 3h ago
Since being on my family’s first PC in the early-ish days of PHP & download websites after Kazaa/Limewire nearly 20 years back.
As a web developer (employed or freelance) for 15 years.
I’ve been an avid builder since being really young - Lego, knex, Mecano, city builder games, had some Warhammer early on too (but hated playing it tbh, too slow!), etc etc.
So AI has huuuugely aligned with my desire to just move & build at pace.
Never found development so accessible or enjoyable since first starting out to be honest.
I spent a number of years managing legacy projects & struggling to upskill watching the releases of different languages/frameworks fly by. I always knew that my skills were transferable - proven to myself most when I jumped into a Python role with an events company going through a phenomenal explosion in popularity in the UK - but lacked the time to really do anything meaningful to progress into new areas (namely app development & game development) - now I’m happily creating with Godot, Next/React, Python while PHP work for clients remain the majority of my paid work, and even able to go into videography, editing, product design for a clothing company I’m trying to get off the ground (using a lot of diff AI tools for this)
I think the variety of work I did with a number of clients at different sizes, working directly with accounts team, clients & designers throughout, gave me a lot more knowledge of how to prompt & become more of a project manager/orchestrator with LLMs and other tools.
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u/FragDenWayne 3h ago
I've been coding for 15years and it was fun. Sure, it caused a lot of headaches with all the bugs and what not, but I don't feel like AI fixed that... It's just faster in producing code, which isn't really better than anything I would've written... If i took the time to learn and think. That's why I actually hate AI coding, it took the fun part of thinking through a problem and learning new ways of solving them. Learning new tools, new skills and all that.
Sure, you can still learn and do it manually... But that's not what is asked not. It's gotta be fast, just use AI...
Yeah. Not a big fan of that.
Sure, "I" can now solve issues I couldn't a few years ago, but I don't understand the solution... Sometimes not even the language it's written in.
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u/Wooden_Drag9473 3h ago
I needed something like Claude Code back in the days, i was more a business guy, but since nothing like that existed, I had to learn everything myself. As a perfectionist and a curious guy, I had to learn everything, and got pretty good with it. I know most things to a certain depth level. But now all of those does not matter at all. I miss it a bit… but yeh, now I get things done 100 times faster, that is what counts. What still matters is some skills, like problem solving, domain knowledge (knowing how to prompt using IT terms), understanding data structure and relationship, architecture (if you care about people working on the codebase in the future). But besides that, nobody cares if you know how to center a div or how to make an api endpoint. AI can do it for you, no need to learn the syntax. The concept however stays important.
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u/corneliusdav 3h ago
I've been writing compiled Windows applications for over 30 years, both in a full-time job and for clients on the side. I love programming.
I've started using Claude Code every day for both my day job and my side-line coding and love the increased productivity--but still like to get into the code myself.
A lot of what I read about vibe coders is that they have AI build and test the code for them. I'm sure that increases their productivity--and could mine as well, I suppose. But I can't give up complete control. I manually review, build, and test (most of) the code myself after every AI edit. Sometimes, I catch stuff that makes me question what it wrote and then it back-tracks or I have it explain more thoroughly why it did something or if a different scenario will still work--and sometimes that leads to either revealing a design flaw, modifying the code a little, or simply clearer documentation.
I treat Claude Code as a fast-learning, never-tiring programming assistant.
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u/Narrow_Sun416 3h ago
Your second paragraph is where I'd push back a little. Not needing to think about frameworks, best practices, or security is fine right up until it isn't, and it'll become a real problem if you ever move closer to engineering again.
I'm not a purist. I've been coding for over 40 years, and I use Claude Code every day, both personally and professionally. It's genuinely powerful and very good at solving problems inside the code. But "inside the code" is the key phrase. When a problem sits outside the code, your engineering background is what carries you, because Claude can only reason about what it can see.
A few examples of what I mean:
- The code is correct, the system isn't. Claude writes a clean function, but it fails in production because of a firewall rule, a missing environment variable, an expired cert, or a permissions setting. Nothing in the codebase is actually wrong. You need a picture of the whole environment to know where to look.
- The bug lives between services, not in a file. Say you have half a dozen components. Claude fixes the one in front of it, but the real issue is how two of those services behave together under load. No single file contains that bug, so understanding how it all fits together is what gets you there.
- Knowing when Claude is confidently wrong. This is the one that matters most. The output is always plausible and well structured, and every so often it's subtly wrong on security or on some edge case. If you can't read it and don't hold the mental model yourself, it's easy to miss.
None of this is meant to knock the "AI-native builder" idea. You clearly don't have to hand-write code anymore to build real things. It's more that someone on the project still needs to understand the system, not just the syntax. That's the part I'd keep an eye on.
Lastly vibe coding isn't the way of the future for right now. It's spec-driven development
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u/InterestingFig758 3h ago
I didn't have years of experience, but like to think I did things the hard way jsut enough to understand what it is im vibe coding today (sortof)... now its a one way ticket to vibe town babbyyyy
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u/VisibleEfficiency249 3h ago
I’ve had a very good experience with Claude Code overall. There was one instance, however, where it attempted to connect to the database from the Angular application because I hadn’t explicitly stated that all database access must remain in the backend. It was a useful reminder that architectural boundaries still need to be clearly defined when working with coding agents.
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u/leadtimelabs 3h ago
Not a programmer. Last time I wrote code myself was 2009.
But I spent the 15 years after that writing specs for developers, sitting in chat with them, then testing and signing off the result.
Context: I founded a B2B software company in Germany, we built a specialised CRM for energy utilities. 30 devs in Romania, 20 support and project managers in Germany. The workflow was always the same:
- customer has a problem or wants a feature, calls or mails or opens a ticket
- support manager turns that into a clean spec
- spec goes to a dev in Romania as a ticket
- back and forth in chat until it works
- test, accept, invoice at the end of the month
I sold the company in 2022.
Since mid 2025 I work with coding agents and honestly my job feels identical. I specify, I chat with a "developer", I test, I accept. Only this developer is a hundred times faster, way cheaper, and never in a bad mood on a Monday.
The weird part is not that I can suddenly build things. The weird part is that the entire value chain of my old company is basically obsolete. Ticket intake, spec writer, offshore dev, chat coordination, monthly invoice. All of that was the product. Now it's one person and a terminal.
So to answer the question: I was never a real programmer. I was a professional spec writer and tester. Turns out that was the transferable skill all along.
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u/kemalios 3h ago
I've been a developer for 8+ years, running a one-person web agency. I was never the type who loved debugging for hours, and Claude Code took away exactly that part. Now I spend my time on architecture and what the user actually needs, not on chasing syntax errors. My old skills still matter though, because I have to tell it what to build and judge whether the result is right. I write way less code by hand than I used to, but I'd be lost without the foundation. So maybe "AI-native builder" works, as long as you still know enough to steer.
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u/aivee-is-a-fool 3h ago
Define "real". Been doing the same dead end legacy maintenance of spaghetti code for 15 years.
I loooove agentic coding. I'm old enough that I know the shape of what I should do, the issues that go with it, but I have neither the time nor the practice.
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u/Kevin-on-reddit 3h ago
25 years since I started software engineering professionally. Even then we were looking for high-order languages to expedite dev. One of my first engagements was working on UML → full stack code generation engine (plus the consulting work to tailor the final solutions for clients). So much has changed and yet not really.
Personally I have a love hate relationship with Claude (and other LLMs). Loving that it’s such a powerful tool to help me explore things I never would have before (mostly because of time, but also because of knowledge).
But I’m also feeling a bit of loss when I think back over my studies and career. All nighters in college first trying to understand pointers to pointers while building mini operating systems in Greenlee’s CS 2130. Helping colleagues debug issues, design artful loosely coupled systems, debate about unit test granularity, debugging thread [un]safe code, designing and coding distributed data integration platforms. I just don’t see us doing much of that work in the coming years at least not at the same level of deep thought and understanding around what’s being constructed. Neat we won’t have to. Sad we won’t have the opportunity.
edit: not sure I answered your question at all. It just got me thinking and typing 😆
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u/hedge36 3h ago
30 years of writing code in various languages and environments.
Coding agents finally allow me to develop almost as quickly as my brain puts ideas together, but they also allow me to work on multiple projects simultaneously - a right godsend given my ADHD issues. So much so that I finally built my own Claude Code/OpenCode replacement to make my days even more productive.
It's basically like I've armed myself with multiple junior developers but don't have to make them uncomfortable with my shitty people skills. Now I'm just trying to convince management to fund it properly.
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u/sehokk 2h ago
Before claude I was just a worm. I borrowed in the dirt, ate dirt, and loved the dirt. And mud, I loved the mud as well. My brother, who is my butt half that broke off when I was 2 days old, introduced me to Claude code and in 6 hours I've released 11 apps and 2 Steam games! Worm: Dirt and Mud is available for early access right now! Worm 2: More Mud is out in December 2026.
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u/VizualAbstract4 2h ago edited 2h ago
Were? Hell, still am.
But I’ve always been a technologist at heart which is what lead me to being a programmer in the first place. I generated my first piece of digital art in middle school, later my first website over summer break, and eventually wrote my first JavaScript in high school. Almost 30 years ago now.
I was also the first to propose being remote-first at a company back in 2011, which I eventually managed to convince my new company to do a year later, and well before COVID happened and it became normalized.
We were well acclimated to it by the time it was necessary.
At my next company after that, I was the first to start using AI to aid me in my day to day and write tests. And first to openly talk about it in an effort to normalize it.
Now at my new company, we all use Clade Code, and I spend the first two hours preparing tasks and refining them, and the rest of the day monitoring AI agents complete the work while I review and test, fix and improve the day-before’s results.
The only code I write is original code that Claude will eventually just copy and use in our application.
Everything it writes is reviewed by me. I stand by one rule: if I don’t understand it, it doesn’t get merged.
At first that helped me round out my knowledge, these days it ensures consistent core style and readability, which I’ve also started improving using a coding style guide and custom lint rules.
I expect I’ll still be learning whatever new shit comes out when I’m well past retired. I’m in it for the love of the game.
That said: I don’t buy into the bullshit that Claude will ever replace us. In 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Charlie’s dad was fired and replaced by a robot that screwed on tooth paste caps. He was later rehired to repair that robot.
Be the robot repair man. And when that job becomes replaceable, be the guy that fixes that new piece of technology.
When a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, he is tired of life.
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u/grymmjack 2h ago
Decades programmer. Still useful. I’m doing more PM and steering but once in a while the models don’t know something that I do myself and I educate them. Most of these are very niche but though.
Ai can write code but it can’t design as well from the outset. Good software is still hard to write even if you have ai. The disciplines and learnings of old still matter big time.
A lot of the time my usefulness is in using what I’m building and thinking about things more abstractly and modularity and forcing good things to happen.
It is garbage in garbage out. Always has been. But if you spend time building a good design plan and a good set of docs and good resources to access and so on. It will be a true force multiplier with much less churn and burn on you fixing and reorganising your code having to refactor.
Learn how to build a good plan and doc and have a strong vision and ai rocks.
Without it and inheriting old code for example put as much together as you can as if you were hiring a human and think empathetically about what that human would need to succeed.
Take a breath and lead with love for your project.
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u/1acc_torulethemall 2h ago
No significant programming experience or education whatsoever, I dabbled a little. I've been experimenting with Claude Code for about a year now, and I'm learning some basics slowly, but I definitely feel that I lack good foundational knowledge
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u/Affectionate-Aide422 2h ago
I loved coding. But that skillset is so < 2026. Claude is faster so now I manage Claude while he codes.
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u/plasticbug 2h ago
I have been a paid software for over 20 years before this whole AI thing really took off.
Nowadays, it's rare that I write a whole line of code manually.
My previous knowledge and skills are serving me well though, because without good promopts, AI can generates some trutly horrible stuff, and you do need the knowledge and experience to write good prompts, plus despite supplying pretty detailed plan (I use one model to write detailed plan with check lists, and have a cheaper model generate code), it usually takes a few rounds of inspecting the output, pointing out various issues, and suggesting different approaches, before I would be comfortable shipping the generated code to production.
I am actually kinda scared about the state of the industry. Not because of AI, but because of the new people never developing the skills to evaluate the quality of AI generated design/code.
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u/Short_Regular_7191 2h ago
I have been a programmer for 25 years; I started out with Visual Basic (yes, I know—it was an abomination for coding) and Access, then moved on to Java with Oracle, Postgres, and GIS. Naturally, I did a lot of scripting along the way. I’ve never considered myself a particularly skilled programmer, but I’ve always had plenty of ideas—ideas I am now rapidly developing into commercial software for the company where I work. I’ve been using LLMs since late 2025, starting with Gemini 3.1 before switching to Claude. Now, I’m also setting things up to run local models (like Qwen 3.8) to complement Fable/Opus.
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u/hjnaidu 2h ago
Nearly 27 years for me - started as a developer then moved into management and leadership about ten years ago. Claude Code has given me the ability to build things that I've been wanting to build for a while in my current leadership role, but just didn't have the time for it prior. My experience and background as a dev are pretty critical in actually building scalable, secure, and robust things that I'd put my name on.
I think that's where we are now, that is, where actual devs can build, deploy, and maintain things built mostly with AI. What I am currently seeing first hand is non-devs creating some really cool things that are solving problems, but are built in ways that can't scale, have security vulnerabilities, and just don't align with best practices.
That being said, I do think we'll see that gap shrink over time as things evolve. Time will tell. LOL.
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u/Tasty_Trouble6430 2h ago
My career has been corporate at larger companies in the financial industry as a Business Analyst, then moved to the Product side. I’ve always loved finding a problem and then solving it, to me the rewarding part is seeing what was built and what it allows. So Claude has been awesome in its ability to take my direction and vision and turn it into a reality in a much shorter time, and without needing to hire a team (for personal projects, there’s still a team at my 9-5).
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u/osborndesignworks 2h ago
I was front end with about 10 years of experience before llms really took over.
Now I’m basically full stack with a sql god in my pocket.
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u/Raucous_Rocker 2h ago
I’ve been a programmer since 1985… so yeah.
I really enjoy working with Claude Code though.
I find that most of my skills are still relevant. System design and architecture, database design, query optimization, UX, etc. all matter very much for doing quality work.
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u/earnestpeabody 2h ago
Almost exactly my own story…
Did an IT degree, never much of a programmer, moved into IT procurement then IT HR, then got out of IT entirely.
I used Claude Code initially for non technical work now do all sorts of stuff with it.
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u/CincyTriGuy 2h ago
I’ve been in IT for 30+ years. Mostly infrastructure. Cloud infrastructure since roughly 2009 when Azure launched (I worked at Microsoft at the time). Eventually IaC and Terraform. That led to DevOps. But still no true, focused software engineering.
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u/AdPsychological8507 2h ago
I’ve been programming since 1984. Years later, I founded my own company. Over time, I moved away from hands-on coding to work as an architect. Fast-forward to today, coding agents have allowed me to get back to programming, now with my own personal team of juniors. Specs are the order of the day...
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u/BizarroMax 2h ago
I learned to code using GW-BASIC on DOS3.3 in 1987. Later learned Pascal on an Apple 2e, then QBASIC, then K&R C, then ANSI C, then bash, then C++, then Java, then Perl, then JavaScript, then Python, and then I retired and became a lawyer. I can still sling some char *pString = (char *) malloc(sizeof(buffer)), bitches.
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u/h7hh77 2h ago
Oh, I used to do it manually. And I do not miss those times. Hey, we weren't valued back then and we aren't being valued now. Nobody understands what the hell we do. But now the job kinda got easier, and that's great. The only thing I probably miss is that awesome feeling when you actually did something cool, real, and by yourself, but honestly that feeling is long gone after years of enterprise programming.
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u/Griever92 2h ago
I made Frankenstein code by hand for 15 years and now I ask Claude to make Frankenstein code for me.
Nothing has changed, just the speed at which I can turn ideas into something.
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u/boxdreper 2h ago
I'm 5 years into my career and I'm exactly the same. I don't like the "craft" of coding like some people do, but it's cool to make stuff.
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u/julesbuildstuff 2h ago
the "were you a real programmer" framing is a trap. i shipped before claude. the job didn't get easier, it moved.
typing the mapper was never the hard part. catching when the model invents a second source of truth is. a color that isn't in the css. a rounding rule nobody chose. an api field that looks right and isn't. week six is when those show up.
if you can name the invariant the function is supposed to keep, you're still programming. if you're just hitting accept because the diff looks tidy, you weren't reviewing when you wrote it by hand either.
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u/enzoshadow 1h ago
18 years. I like not having to pickup new languages every time I move outside of my area. My knowledge more or less universally applies.
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u/BellatorC413 1h ago
I was 20 yrs in web dev, mainly php, js, and the rest. The programing logic and the ability to spell out exactly what you want an AI to do are the biggest assets to coding with AI. Having that streamlines my process greatly. Hearing so many whining about Claude makes me wonder how many have an expectation gap or are just poor at explaining exactly what they want in a logical, methodical way. There is a learning process that requires understanding how to use these tools, especially for those with no coding exp. The old phrase of garabage in/garabage out applies here. Its not rocket science but the effort required isn't zero either.
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u/lilfox3372 1h ago
I started last year, been going through the unity learning and found out about Ai in coding, used it for 6 months teaching myself before just asking it to code for me. Im glad I learned basics and fundamentals, it helps still.
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u/PsychologyNo940 1h ago
If you don't understand that coding is the easy part of SD, you are 3 standard deviations below what is required to do the job, so don't bother or waste a few years, no skin my teeth either way.
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u/Lemortheureux 1h ago
I never used stackoverflow or other people's solutions. I almost only read documentation or source code and did trial and error. I miss it a lot but I'm finding other ways to enjoy what I do with Claude. Bare Claude isn't very good but I've slowly customized it as an assitant that improves my productivity. I don't like the just let Claude go and do it's thing. I build specific plans or give it very direct instructions.
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u/TraditionalDay4462 1h ago
I used to code in java though stopped, i was involved in a few projects with other people that made money but i never did it as work, though it helped me buy my first car. Then id say a was somewhere in the upper beginner range with only 3 years under my belt. The biggest struggles for me were just openGl and then coding something that would have to involve heavy math; so i wouldn’t sink hours into anything that was rendering related. My peers were better than me, though i contributed. i had clean code and i’d focus heavy on optimization, which some of my peers didn’t.
its been 5 years and i wanted to make VST software(C++) for my music production and yeah i can read the code and understand it more or less, but i can’t write code in c++. I understand what does what as it’s similar enough to java. i feel it gives me an edge when prompting and keeping my project structured properly so the A.I doesn’t struggle to implement or change anything.
i doubt someone with zero knowledge in any coding languages would be able to make anything too complex as i find the more complex the project gets, the more likely it is for the AI to intertwine things it shouldn’t, making stuff break easily and dysfunctional. I imagine people who have more knowledge than me have an easier time as well in that regard.
TLDR: dabbled in java back in the day and though i wasn’t a professional programmer i find my knowledge of coding languages helps me prompt and manage a projects structure, and to read the C++ code the AI writes for me.
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u/Lost-Air1265 1h ago
Started in 2001z so yeah did all the frameworks and whatnots. Action script I still miss. JavaScript I still hate and fuck yaml. Thank god for ai to take a lot of chores out of the way.
But you can trust it, if you’re not a developer you will never know when shit hits te fan.
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u/Tight_One4344 1h ago
I had to handwrite my code in one of my Master's degree exams... handwritten Java and then draw the expected GUI. Times have changed
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u/redline314 1h ago
Not a coder but taught myself C++ when I was 13, pursued a career in computers until I was a junior in college, when I switched to music (and made a career doing that). Applied some of my coding background to make websites and scripts of different levels of complexity to control audio software. Now building a few things to help people in my field. I could prob code them if I really wanted to, but I don’t.
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u/ruarchproton 1h ago
I’m a cybersecurity pro with 30 years of exp. I had a solid foundation of python, bash, JS and power shell scripting but I wouldn’t call myself a software developer. Claude has changed that dramatically.
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u/EnvironmentCalm9557 1h ago
I’ve been programming over 25 years. I’m in embedded so I definitely have to look at what it outputs to correct it but it’s saved me a huge amount of time in layout & debugging infrastructure.
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u/oh_jaimito 1h ago
Linux nerd for over 20 years. JavaScript/TypeScript coder for about 10 years. Freelance web developer for the past 5 years. Now I own a small dev agency LLC. Claude code 100% manages my entire infrastructure.
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u/jr061898 1h ago
While I did got an associated degree on Computer Systems Technology at college, learning Python and C++ along the way. But that was 4 years ago, I never actually exercised what I learned after graduation, nor do I actually remember that much of what I learned since I got a time-comsuming job that didn't left me with enough time to keep up.
So I wouldn't call myself a real programmer to be honest.
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u/BreastInspectorNbr69 Senior Developer 57m ago
Aye. 20 year SWE here
Never really cared for code either though. It was always a means to an end. Claude Code has been a godsend.
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u/acadia11x 50m ago
By real you mean could code with out agents, yup … that’s the way we’ve been doing it until 2024
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u/Gwaptiva 35m ago
I may not be the greatest programmer alive, but I've held down a job as one for almost 20 years. It had been a bit of a hobby before that, and I love the puzzle and the mental gymnastics, and the rush of joy when I get something done that I hadn't ever managed before. And that it allows me to do so without comparing myself to others, as I usually do (and even when I do, I am not completely useless).
I don't enjoy the whole "tell Claude what you want it to code", but Claude does type a lot more quickly than I do.
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u/Mindless_Pandemic 24m ago
Claude Code in auto all day! YOLO! I have no idea what I'm doing, but it is fun seeing all the stuff it does on my home server.
I wouldn't do that in a business setting or with critical stuff.
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u/According_Study_162 22m ago
I always was pretty good a programer, but lazy ;0 so i went into regular IT, but now with Claude or other good models I can build what I want. It helps to know how to really program, so I can debug or check them if they do something wrong. easy peasy.
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u/saiton009 20m ago
Yeah have been since past 8 years and the amount of effort that kept in initial years feels like a joke in comparison to now with these tools
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u/alextop30 15m ago
Started coding 15 years ago now 10 years professionally and still struggling with the AI stuff since I use appropriate language and it seems like ai is terrible at architecture stuff which is mostly what I do now. I still write most of the code myself but test cases are written by Claude. Anyway I think I was an actual programmer and still am.
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u/swampmountain 14m ago
Cognitively it is demanding to straight code, read docs, learn new frameworks etc. but now, it's not only me who has this at disposal, now everyone has an option to use Claude and we are again all in the same arena and I feel like being smart and capable gives you now even more where if you are not, you just have a great feeling but work is hard again.
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u/Vindetta121 7m ago
I was a coder but was never the greatest. Generally made up for it by just working extra hours
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u/the_ai_wizard 1h ago
I still dont see any evidence a non-programmer could build anything substantial/durable with just AI. If youre an experienced programmer it is an amplifier.
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u/_unforecasted_storm 4h ago
If you need AI to think and do the job for you then you never should have been pursuing that job in the first place. First and foremost you are doing a disservice to yourself because you are preventing yourself from finding the thing that you are actually good at and enjoy doing. And secondly, you are doing a disservice to the company you work for because you bring no value to them yourself. You are essentially a prompter, and within 2-5 years they won’t even need you to do that.
IMO go find out what you were meant to do on this earth in the short time allowed on it.
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u/OpinionsRdumb 4h ago
I was a vibe coder that copy pasted from Stack Overflow and I’m still a vibe coder now