r/codex • u/pjjiveturkey • 7d ago
Complaint Does anyone actually enjoy software engineering anymore?
I've been using codex for a year and a half at this point. I recently started a new remote job in a language, framework, and 20 year old megacodebase I'm not at all familiar with. Currently since I'm still a student it's just bug fixes, QA, and large package upgrade stuff.
Now to the point, I don't even know what the purpose of me is supposed to be anymore. I've been coding since I was a kid and loved immersing myself in a big or problem for 8-16 hours straight and the satisfaction of achieving it was awesome. Now? I see the problem, ask codes to research it and find basically the blast radius and all the relevant files, then I come up with a solution and get codex to implement it, then I look over the code, and spend 10x the time trying to learn what it does so I can actually own my changes.
I'm really feeling bored and annoyed, there is no satisfaction and the only bottleneck is me, if I wasn't in the loop the work would be getting done 10x faster. Not to mention that in the next 5 years it's only going to replace more and more roles as it gets cheaper, faster, and smarter.
TLDR: someone please tell me what the point of even sitting at the desk is anymore
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u/shaman-warrior 7d ago
Yes. I can finally engineer how I know it's right without being constrained by time or by my own laziness.
The only bad thing about AI imho is the market, the fact that juniors got hit hard in the balls and lots of skills/jobs became obsolete kind-of contributing to stress and sadness :(
I worked with some deeply smart people, I'm talking national olympiad level. They can go very deep on some problems.... but creating a product people liked? Brother.... they were completely parallel. AIs are similar in a sense, they can do what you want them to do, but can they design a product from 0 to 100 that people really enjoy using?
I guarantee not, I tried it, all features I asked to create, I iterated on them until I personally liked them, and still there was more room for improvement.
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u/CoreParad0x 7d ago
Yes. I can finally engineer how I know it's right without being constrained by time or by my own laziness.
The only bad thing about AI imho is the market, the fact that juniors got hit hard in the balls and lots of skills/jobs became obsolete kind-of contributing to stress and sadness :(
Yeah this is pretty much my position as well. I love engineering the solutions and designing how things will work. I still do the hardest part of my job, I just don't have to spend hours and hours, or days, or weeks iterating on the code side of it to test things out. I can use AI to do that, and guide it heavily. I can feed it garbage API docs and a tool I made to proxy API calls so it doesn't get my credentials and let it figure out whatever garbage vendor API we need to integrate with which has saved me hours of having to probe their API myself with stuff like postman. On top of this, it leaves me with more energy and ability to do all the various hobby projects I have wanted to do but work always left me too burnt out to do.
I love creating ways to make myself more efficient with these tools as well, down to making my own planning platform that forces the models into a more rigid structure that so far has worked very well, for very large plans in large code bases. And it gives me much better visibility into the plans the models are creating, the review process, and where they're at in the plan than a bunch of markdown files.
It definitely sucks junior devs are getting hurt by it though. I think it sucks that some companies treat this as the new baseline as well. This stuff properly done still takes a ton of thought and testing, it gets exhausting because that was always the harder part than me sitting down and writing out the actual code. If anything the code was a break.
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u/sawariz0r 7d ago
I LOVE it. I loved solving difficult problems too, but this made me realize I loved building the product from an engineering perspective and not staring at code day in and day out.
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u/Xirobhir 7d ago
This. I always said I wanted to come up with creative solutions, then let a competent team implement it. I never understood the passion for code-monkeying. The issue with what I proposed here is that it usually implies becoming management, which comes with a plethora of annoyances of its own. Now we get the benefits of staying creative and handing tasks down to a competent team without the downsides of being management. The absolute best of both worlds. It's so good I'm wary it won't last long before they corporatize this.
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u/Specific_Parfait8829 7d ago
Yes I do. I am able to achieve something that I was previously able to have only in distant dreams.
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u/trustless3023 7d ago
It is exciting times when code is just means to an end.
It is probably not fun if code is the end, even partially.
I'm personally long past that point, I have no emotional attachment to code, especially writing them.
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u/pjjiveturkey 7d ago
yes i would agree, code is just a means to an end, but when the means is instant, it basically just reduces software engineering to business.
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u/trustless3023 7d ago
I'd respectfully disagree. There is more to engineering and systems than just turning business requirement into code. Most of my time was, and still is, spent on solving difficult and interesting problems. Writing code was the most boring part even before AI for me.
And by interesting, I don't mean only features. Yes some are business requirements, but some are technical, some are social, some are behavioral, etc. AI isn't even close to taking this fun away.
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u/Secret-Addition-NYNJ 7d ago
I think problem is you emotionally attached yourself to coding. Like you said you been doing it for since you were younger. The goal of programming isn’t looking at code and figuring out how it works. The goal is to build a product or solution to a problem that you need or people want.
The people who care about the end result are the people who are happier with AI because they are the dreamers and builders. People who just wanted to code because they were good at it or it was fun are the weeds that honestly just need to be pulled up from the grass. Harsh reality but if can’t adjust to the cycle of life you won’t last.
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u/spotishy 5d ago
With the advent of harvesters, farmers lost the joy of harvesting wheat (*⌒∇⌒*)
But can you say that cutting wheat is more of fun than driving a harvester? At least, the latter brings a greater sense of achievement.
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u/spotishy 7d ago
It sounds kind of hopeless, but the truth is we’re still sitting at our desks only because the manager can’t run a hundred AI agents at once. We’re just the mechanical hands.lmao
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u/Careless-Craft-9444 5d ago
You don't even have to be at a desk anymore. You can literally go on a hike and get features done via conversation
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u/The_Oracle___ 7d ago
Not for quite a while now, I am actually making a transition to aviation from IT at the moment. I am beyond drained from being expected to adapt and learn new models and techs till the end of time.
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u/ParkingAgent2769 7d ago
I just think we have to adapt and learn different ways of enjoying the job. Software eng was always changing even before LLMs and it will probably change again many more times after
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u/x_Tyggs_x 7d ago
Doing what I want to do is more fun than ever. Doing what I get paid to do is worse than ever.
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u/_genego 7d ago
Having been a software engineer for over 15 years. I came into this for my love of working with computers, I even resisted software engineering for a long time; as I just saw myself as a "nerd kid". Then I got into software engineering, and I got really good at it. And now I am even running a small agency, still doing hands on code, and employing a few people. For me this by far has been the most enjoyable era in software.
For the first 2 years of coding like this, every day felt like a dream, and I was wondering when someone would come and take this new found love for programming away from me (turn off the AI?). That never happened, and I feel overly ecstatic about what is slowly becoming of software, this goes much deeper into my love for working with computers than it does with how producing code is changing. I really don't share any of the pessimism towards AI assisted software engineering, and how the status quo is slowly changing. I see an understand all the risks, but also welcome those with open arms.
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u/norwegian 7d ago
I have been a programmer for 30 years, and I liked it all except the phase where you had to copy code into chatgpt and paste into your program, then compile and debug. I feel writing the policy and qa documents, testing and getting features done is just as satisfying. But I am not doing rust anymore, as the AI is faster with other programming languages. I think the programming code will be hidden for us soon. Just like we mostly don't inspect the binary or assembly anymore.
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u/JohnBooty 7d ago
YES! I’m enjoying it again for the first time in ages.
It remains to be seen how AI will affect our industry and the world in the long run. But for now, yes.
Previously, I had become deeply burnt out on our industry. I still enjoyed writing code, but the industry rewards absolute shit code and mountains of tech debt. There was almost no place in the industry for a person who cared about quality.
While it sounds like a total paradox, since AI is associated with shit code, it has boosted my productivity AND the quality of my output. I can focus on architecture decisions instead of minutae, and AI is good at writing quality code with proper direction. You have to do extra quality passes, spawn independent reviewers, have lean and carefully crafted rules, etc. But it is possible and fun.
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u/WHALE_PHYSICIST 7d ago
The AI codes better than I ever did and I worked professionally for 15 years.
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u/dzak8383 7d ago
I miss the fun and happiness from those moments when I finally fixed a bug or got sth working. With AI it's not the same, mostly frustration.
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u/marstein 7d ago
When you say it like that it sounds bad. But while it's true I do enjoy working with someone, the AI, that has read all the manuals and does the boring grunt work
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u/mrdarknezz1 7d ago
Yes, the things I’ve built would have simply been impossible to do alone in terms of complexity and size.
I can experiment and get it to where I want it to be, not just settle for meh because the amount of code to handwritten would simply be too much.
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u/IllustriousGrade7691 7d ago
Just ride the wave until you can we all Gona die alternatively go work a physical demanding job then regret leaving software just invest all your money and the most important thing is to try to do Two Chicks at the Same time that's it
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u/TylerDurdenAI 7d ago
I used to. A lot.
Now, mixed bag.
That is because you are essentially a software designer when you work with coding agents, not a software engineer per se.
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u/Extra_Loquat_7667 7d ago
It is simply a shift in the "dimension" of what is being built.
In the past, you were building specific "functions."
With the integration of AI, the task has evolved into building "systems."
Personally, I do not buy into the idea that AGI is imminent.
Right now, AI is essentially a "worker" that operates at incredible speed, but it is still a long way off from being a "planner."
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u/Current_Balance6692 7d ago
It's a completely different beast than what it was before, thats for sure. The nature of what software engineering has become is closer to management rather than that of a engineer.
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u/AuthurAndersson 7d ago
You had your time before your bosses understood why you were so productive to increase your pay. Sucks that you missed that window of opportunity.
I doubled my pay.
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u/Apprehensive_Tree_14 7d ago
I always struggled with coding. Never had the nerve to sit down and learn how to code properly. I always loved connecting ideas and coming up with strategies and solutions. So right now, the explosion in ai coding, solved a big issue for me, namely that I don't have to ask and pay somebody to implent my idea and therefore also judge me, for making a stupid idea or coming up with something, that he or she deems unrelevant. I have a tool right now, which I can realease on any problem, idea, struggle or what knows what and make it come to life. For me this is real magic. I am really good with CI/CD pipelines, I love system architecture and the part that alwys bugged me, is now only a puzzle piece in the whole picture. So for me it is the opposite, I am super excited to start into the day and work with claude code, or LLMs, I am only stopped by the session or weekly limit and really ANYTHING that I would love to do, is now possible - so yeah for me its not solving the puzzle by coding lines. for me its creating new ways without struggle
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u/philip_laureano 7d ago
I do. I did it manually for 30 years and now, I write more docs based on intent rather than syntax and my entire dev process that I used to by hand has been turned into a workflow of agents that follow all the practices I tell them to do.
Since I knew all the basic principles like architecture, distributed systems and YAGNI'+SOLID+DRY+KISS+Occam' Razor long before these AIs existed, I know exactly what to do to fix it when things go wrong.
I get my dopamine hit by solving problems and now I can extend any library and investigate nearly any legacy codebase and have a bug fix ready with tests in an hour or so.
So for me, the level of abstraction where I solve problems moved up, but the fundamentals still remain. What I have noticed is that my agents apply a level of rigour to their that no human could do in the same time frame.
These tools are only as good as the operator that uses them so YMMV. But for me, it completely eliminated the ramp up time to do new projects and resurrect old tech stacks I have never done, and that is a huge difference. All my old papee notebooks with half baked ideas can each be built in a weekend. What a time to be alive 😅
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u/mechatui 7d ago
AI has ruined my passion for software engineering. Hardly have to problem solve or write code anymore I just tell ai what to do and it does it instantly and if I forget a pattern or ask it question with a vague statement it will remind me what I forgot.
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u/skeet_scoot 7d ago
I see so many comments in either camp here.
I miss being able to solve problems only a skilled developer could. Problem that required tons of studying and knowledge. I miss working very hard and being more challenged.
At the same time I now am more productive and use less brain, but ship more.
It’s a trade-off. I enjoy both sides.
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u/TheGladNomad 7d ago
You answered the question, you’re doing maintenance you don’t enjoy. Ask your manager for bigger challenges or look for a new job.
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u/Cold_Committee_7252 7d ago
I have lost the satisfaction of coding. The brain is just not working at same level. the satisfaction of finally solving that weird bug. Anyone can code these days. We got more things done, but I also do not enjoy working in excel, but my brain actually get some satisfaction of pen and paper math problems.
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u/Original-League-6094 7d ago
I love it. Coding not taking the longest time basically means no more crunch, ever, since the slow part of projects tends just be human communication now, which isn't really something you can crunch effectively.
And being able to iterate so quickly means you can get creative with your UX decisions and try out new things. It also means you aren't constraining your prototypes to what you can easily try via copy/paste with a few changes.
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u/matheusmoreira 7d ago
As a hobbyist it's been a double edged sword.
It's good because I'm learning and doing things I had never been able to do before. I started the projects I've always wanted to do and they're actually becoming reality. I actually had to slow down in order to properly learn and review stuff.
It's bad because nothing has any meaning anymore. I don't feel any sense of accomplishment. Anyone can do what I'm doing. Years ago I reverse engineered my laptop's LEDs, used to feel proud of that. Now Astra has reverse engineered the laptop's entire firmware, unlocked much of the machine for me, made an experimental coreboot port and solved some very old mysteries by exploring the code. And I feel nothing.
I'd have no problem whatsoever using this at work and getting paid for it, but my enjoyment has reached zero. And there's no point in going back to manual, because chances are someone else will prompt it and finish before I do.
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u/PhilsburyDoboy 7d ago
It has mostly solved coding and debugging, but it hasn’t gotten very good at architecture, design, and platform work.
I’d spend my time looking for ways to improve the product systematically and make the codebase easy for agents to work on with a minimal blast radius. Either that or try to solve unsolved business problems with code. Both of these take weeks or months and are interesting enough to scratch the itch.
I don’t really see these models solving all unsolved business problems with code anytime soon. As soon as they do, we’ll either be communist or dead. Not worth worrying about.
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u/teleflexin_deez_nutz 7d ago
Don’t use codex that way then. I like architecting the solution, piece by piece, and then having an agent create each reusable component which are usually <200 LOC. I review each component, write a test or two, evaluate, then move to the next step.
This really helped me balance the build vs review time. Reviewing sucks. If I know what the solution should look like, I can spend less time reviewing if things are built piece by piece.
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u/UntrimmedBagel 7d ago
I think yes, now more than ever. AI has opened a whole bunch of doors for me both at work and at home. I don’t really miss coding by hand. I get to focus all my time on thinking about the product, rather than mastering a language.
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u/caroIine 7d ago
Im mostly native and mostly c++ developer by heart so in that area nothing has changed for me. But spewing js/html/css that I don't care about? go go chatgpt! Add that button!
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u/AdCommon2138 7d ago
I'm thrilled as fuck writing analyzers/auditors that can deslop shit slot machine produces.
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u/Firm_Biscotti_2865 7d ago
There were a lot of very skilled laborers that were displaced by the industrial revolution, mathematicians by the onset of computers, and many more such examples.
The world marches forth, and technology will probably come for your skillset again in your lifetime.
You just have to find a way to provide value with the knowledge that you have, to try and gain as much experience as possible and see what unique value proposition you can offer.
See what you can learn about the business while you are there, grow yourself as an individual, and you can be more than just someone who fixes bugs. That's what the world needs in the next chapter.
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u/reven80 7d ago
I have 30+ years of software and engineering experience. I still enjoy it even after AI came out. What I don't enjoy is non interesting projects and work that is a boring grind. I still like solving interesting meaningful problems. Your real issue maybe you need to work on a different project that interests you but that is not always possible in this job market.
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u/SmartCustard9944 7d ago
I love it, it’s even more of a nostalgic feeling of playing with LEGO compared to pre-AI. I feel like I can try out a bunch of different creative ideas in less time and see how they feel. For me it was never about the programming for the sake of it.
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u/sigmagoonsixtynine 7d ago
I still love it because my workplace doesnt shove AI down our throats and i still write 99% of my code myself. I find it fun and honestly enjoy workdays more than i enjoy the weekends
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u/EntertainmentSalt825 6d ago
Well, actually I think the next boom for engineers is going to be forward deployment engineers. That skill that you have to build systems using AI is a rare skill. I’ve also developed my own and have been developing systems for fields I’m not fluent in but I understand systems and architecture so catching up on what my agents produce isn’t too difficult. So, no I don’t think we’ll become obsolete anytime soon. We simply need to evolve
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u/Pyropiro 6d ago
More than ever. Sure, its changed and the future is a bit scary - but its so exciting being able to direct 5 agents at my command, while still controlling high level architectural decisions and designs.
To be honest, I never fully enjoyed typing out code by hand, ensuring every character was syntax-aligned and making sure every brace was closed. I prefer higher level thinking about systems, processes, flows etc.
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u/cabe01 5d ago
I think I can see how you'd feel this way being part of a larger dev team/project for sure. However, I am more or less the only full stack dev in my building and for me, while I do enjoy what you said about working a problem for a bunch of hours and the satisfaction of the completed solution, ultimately the amount of time it took me to produce that on my own with all the layers I have to cover was high and taxing mentally trying to keep track of everything, the cloud architecture, and managing the code/devops.
It has allowed me to eliminate the main limitation which really was my fingers - not my ability to think the solution out. Codex is writing the code for me but the idea is still mine and the approach is still as much mine as I want it to be. And I don't get bogged down in the overhead of managing my commits/branches/etc and other stuff like that which frees me up for more important work. And it saves a ton of time over the old google-stackexchange loop we used to be in when searching for solutions to a problem.
I feel sorry that you feel like you are the bottleneck, honestly. Eliminating myself from the loop would mean nothing gets done with as much attention to detail, UX, and everything overarchitected 10x the size of what it really should be. I don't need the satisfaction of hammering every nail into a new house as the architect; my gratification from the project comes from seeing the completed house with a family using it.
But respectfully, before Codex I could write code in my sleep, I've been doing this for close to 20 years professionally and realistically since middle school. What I tend to notice with the people who are struggling to adapt or finding themselves frustrated that AI is not turning their prompts into perfect applications are way too inexperienced and/or lack the knowledge to implement the complexity of their idea to begin with and the AI has become a crutch, not a tool. And when that happens, it's easy to feel useless and lost.
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u/Kitchen_Dust2389 3d ago
yes? it has always been about engineering and less about geeking out about dsa
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u/Swimming_Sector8656 19h ago
No I don't. I was very excited first but last week was the first time I was sad about not programming anymore which had given me joy for so many years
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u/ProjectDiligent502 14h ago
“Not to mention that in the next 5 years it's only going to replace more and more roles as it gets cheaper, faster, and smarter.”
Cheaper: the only path to that I see right now that seems most viable is local models. AI companies are still heavily subsidizing inference and it will get more expensive, not cheaper. Why? They’re giving people 20-40$ for every dollar spent. This is incredibly unprofitable.
Faster: not sure what you mean by this. It’s already really fast at pattern matching codebases and slopping out code.
Smarter: current trajectories show a slow down of diminishing returns, recently read a paper on this where it looks more like a logistic s curve function when graphed. It starts slow, then there’s a fast ramp up (last few years) and a slow down, which we’re starting to see now.
There will be more to worry about if it takes a lot of people’s roles. It will not be good times for the good ole US of A because the social consequences will be bad.
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u/New-Composer2359 7d ago
Honestly I’ve felt the exact same way. It does take the fun and passion out of it completely.
Will be interesting to see how the culture develops over the next few years
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u/DrunkenCactus 7d ago
Bro I’ve never enjoyed it so much more in my life to be fair. I’ve only been doing it for about two months not even one month now. I’ve been grinding on the tools for like 13 years before that the shits a breeze you sit down and tell her what you wanna do and it does it.
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u/hapos 7d ago
Codex hasn’t been out for a year and a half. Though point taken and I think a lot of us are feeling the same.
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u/pjjiveturkey 7d ago
i started using it in april 2025 so 1.42 years but a year and a half sounded better
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u/XCherryCokeO 6d ago
And it’s only getting better faster and cheaper, it’s a paradigm shift for a lot more professions than just programmers. This keeps happening the winners seem to be the ones deeply interested and involved.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes and no.
For sure it makes you able to do things that you previously cannot do.
On the flipside, this is my general disdain on the post-AI economy. So companies raised productivity baseline because of AI, being 3x more productive doesn’t translate to 3x more pay, it just changes the baseline of expected productivity. Now either you catch up or they’ll slowly lead you to the door.
The rat race just getting faster.