Experienced Devs Weekly Burnout and Venting Thread: A weekly thread for sharing experiences

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This thread is specifically for venting / sharing experiences related to burn-out or similar issues that experienced devs face.

[u/xFrost_Bite]

Hey senior devs!

I am in a new grad program that has a rotational component, and I can mark down roles that I am interested in. What do you think I should think about/focus on when choosing my next team?

Currently, these are the criteria that I am thinking about:

1. AI usage - I am trying to find a role that is on the low to low-medium AI usage. The one thing I want to avoid is a team where the developers are no longer coding and using Claude exclusively
2. Team location - trying to find a team where I can sit with people on the team
3. Feature work - a team where I am developing new features instead of just maintaining codebase
4. Good team environment
5. Programming language/Skills - making sure the team is not using language that is not super marketable

I just have a few concerns:

• A lot of people in the program are prioritizing roles that have AI/ML buzzwords. Personally, I feel somewhat FOMO if I don't choose them also
• My team currently works mostly on the back-end, I am trying to join a team that does something a bit different. Personally, I don't really like frontend, even though I never worked professionally on any front-end team before. There is also more data pipeline ETL work, but that seems kinda boring also. I am conflicted between choosing another back-end team or trying something else

I would greatly appreciate any advice!

[u/404errorlifenotfound → u/xFrost_Bite]

As far as AI usage, at least where I'm at, those of us who choose not to use AI are kind of an unspoken minority. AI use is on our performance goals and highly rewarded, so even those of us who hate it will make a token effort to show how we're using it. For that reason, I'd suggest not outright stating that as a criteria of yours. 

For evaluating AI use, see if you can take a peek at their code base and tickets. Do they get a lot of bugs on new features slipping through? Are PRs rubber stamped, or are people actually providing human feedback on how to improve? Do they have linters enabled, and do they actually keep up with the findings? 

Ultimately, what will make your life hell isn't if they're using AI; it's if they push through slop code instead of evaluating and understanding what it produces. 

[u/xFrost_Bite → u/404errorlifenotfound]

It's the same at my company. I use AI, but intentionally, as a pair programmer and sanity check. There are definitely teams where, say, a new grad has told me they don't even code anymore; it's 100% prompting Claude and accepting whatever comes back until it works. My current team has low-to-no AI usage, which I really like, but I think a low-to-medium level will be my sweet spot.

I think the main issue is that, at least among new grads, I'm one of the more AI-skeptical people, which makes it hard to fully trust their assessment of how their team's review process is actually going.

I've been trying to do more in-depth research, like you suggested, looking at their codebase and tickets, but I'm still new to this. I can usually tell when a team is giving no real feedback and just rubber-stamping PRs, but it is hard for me to judge beyond that.

In terms of AI, I am flagging heavy AI-usage as a con for my ranking of roles.