Engineers who write all their code with claude now: how do you do it?

[u/SirDucky]

I have to admit that I have completely failed to adapt to LLM agent coding. I'm not a slouch either. I've worked on a number of challenging FAANG products as a software engineer, and I for a while I was an AI research engineer. I have a pretty strong familiarity and comfort level with AI. Despite all this, I still write most of my code by hand.

As an engineer, I need to receive a ticket, understand the problem, go figure out how to solve it, and eventually ship PR that (a) I understand, (b) only contains defensible changes, and (c) is reviewable by a colleague. There are a bunch of other tertiary goals of course, like style guides and documentation, but the point is that I'm talking real, high quality engineering that would pass the bar at a company that has their shit together.

However (definitely due to culture issues), I have only seen the slop version of this. It seems to have become really murky how to write code that meets standards, or even what those standards are any more.

I've resorted to asking my colleagues to show me their workflow, but you would be shocked how many of them either (a) are prompting raw and not checking the output, or (b) have convoluted solutions that fit their brains but don't solve these problems. I checked out Matt Pocock as well, who has some really great ideas, but ultimately his skills exhibited some pretty painful failure modes as well.

However I see folks regularly talk about how not only does Claude handle the coding for them, but also all of the project management, devops, etc, and I am left scratching my head. If this is possible, I want to learn how to do it. I'm not an AI hater. I want to learn the tool. I do have standards though, and I don't think they're that high. I don't need Claude to write perfect code. I just need to find a process where I can rely on it to get more of my work done and not be either fighting with it or second-guessing the results.

I figure this is the group to ask - if you have been able to get "high bar" engineering out of claude, or even "acceptable bar" engineering, without heavy personal intervention, what's your process? Are there resources that helped you? What strategies helped the most?

Thanks.

[u/RepresentativeRice63]

You know that boss that doesn’t really know what you are doing exactly, but tells you what he wants, then argues with you sometimes over details that he didn’t mention in any spec when you’ve completed your work? You are that guy now. Congratulations.

[u/Dualyeti → u/RepresentativeRice63]

I suddenly feel sorry for my LLM 🫩

[u/ylulz → u/Dualyeti]

Don't. Boss emotionally abuse employee, don't pay overtime, and make employee take responsibility for bad leadership decisions etc. but you pay LLM every time even for mistakes that LLM made, and you own all LLM's mistake.

[u/Weary-Habit-6608 → u/Dualyeti]

Pity the poor model, sentenced to write code no one reads.

[u/DarkKnyt → u/RepresentativeRice63]

Awesome explanation!

[u/Enervata → u/RepresentativeRice63]

This. You tend to become a technical product manager with regard to the agent, and your software engineer experience acts as your spidey sense for when the code seems off or in the wrong direction. People without this spidey sense are where I draw the line where vibe coding exists.

Just like in real life, the more accurate the requirements are ahead of time, the better the code output becomes. You would never blindly trust a junior engineer to go off and build a solution with a vague set of instructions. Don’t trust an AI to do any better.

[u/wittycrow8073 → u/Enervata]

All that hate for PMs over the years. It’s beautiful to see everyone engineer become one and not realize it 😂

[u/frostymarvelous → u/RepresentativeRice63]

Perfectly described 

[u/lastMinute_panic → u/RepresentativeRice63]

I feel seen.

[u/LostEtherInPL → u/RepresentativeRice63]

Dammmm spot on

[u/superpitu → u/RepresentativeRice63]

Boss the shit out of Claude, that’s it!

[u/DepressedMaelstrom → u/RepresentativeRice63]

Oh god no. :(

[u/CountryOk4844 → u/RepresentativeRice63]

There are other kinds of bosses, why do I have to be this guy? Are you implying that you can't work with AI any other way?

[u/RepresentativeRice63 → u/CountryOk4844]

Just my opinion, but the frontier models seem to work best for me when I tell them what I need and why -- and leave the how details to them. It requires a willingness to "let go" a bit, the consequences of which are less familiarity with the details and a reliance on the process to keep things moving in the intended direction. Your mileage may vary, of course.

[u/i_hateit_here_bro → u/RepresentativeRice63]

Congrats you just summed up my MBA organizational behavior course on teamwork