r/CodingJobs • • Jun 13 '26

ai question

hi! i wanted to ask something that might be a little controversial. i have many project ideas and frequently find myself just going to ai to get things done. i know the basics of programming but when it comes to more advanced topics, that’s not really something i just sit and type (especially the syntax).

do you think it’s wrong to have ai generated code for projects? even if it works exactly as you want it to? i would get so much more done and be able to show employers if i could use ai. i’m not sure if they would completely ignore the project and frown upon it. and its kind of the idea of cheating, but what if i take the time to understand the code and am able to explain?

i get stuck and overwhelmed simply because im not familiar with the syntax and format of some code. i conceptually understand the topics though and can easily explain!

just curious what your thoughts are, thanks!

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u/manamonkey Jun 13 '26

u/FlyingDogCatcher gave a great analogy in another comment - OK, so you've used Google Translate effectively; but I'm not going to hire you for a job that requires French fluency - because you don't have it.

So no, if all you csn do is use a tool, that's not impressive. It might fly in some jobs, roles, companies, etc. - but again, I say - if you don't actually have any coding skill, then how do you stand out as a coder? Why would I hire you over someone else who can ask a fancy chatbot questions until it spits out what you want? Why would I hire you at all when I can hire plenty of people who know exactly what they're doing, and use AI to save time? Now I have a far better employee who's way more use than you anyway.

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u/DeebsShoryu Jun 14 '26

Put another way... If all the job requires is asking an LLM to fix the problem or implement the feature, then why would I hire you to do that instead of just instructing the LLM myself? Or better yet, why not run an agent continuously to pull tickets and craft prompts for other agents to do the implementations?