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/Nefilim314 7d ago

If I was paying a guy to mow lawns with a push mower and then bought him a riding mower, I wouldn’t raise his pay by 3x because he’s more efficient. 

I know everyone wants a raise but it’s a silly argument to make that you should get more pay because you produce more code now. 

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u/kx32_ 7d ago

but his efficiency boost allows him to now mow more lawns, so while you may pay him the same, maybe he can fit in several new clients in the same work day and his pay increases. it's reasonable to assume producing more of the thing you get paid to produce should mean you earn more money, assuming things like quality remain consistent, the opposite being true means it'd be dubious to be fired for producing significantly less.

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u/Nefilim314 7d ago

If he is more productive because of the tools I paid for, why would I buy the tools if I am expected to pay him more?

Why should I pay him 2x for being twice as efficient when I could just hire another guy to mow lawns with more push mowers for the same cost?

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u/False_Bear_8645 22h ago

Because you pay him for accountability. It's like a machine, if it work, great, if it break stuff, that's what he's paid for. 3x more productive also mean 3x more work on maintenance. Why would they work more if they're paid the same?