To be fair, the article doesn’t quite deliver on this promise. The examples are mostly focused on improving work-related workflows, so I guess that’s what they think “daily life” is.
I agree, but some (most?) software being written doesn’t require a deep understanding to verify because the domain is small enough or you’re not required to solve for all of its intricacies. E.g. prototypes, internal tools, low scale CRUD apps, personal projects, etc.
I believe this is where the huge divide in perceived AI productivity in SW comes from. It’s folks working on low-understanding-required domains talking to folks working on high-understanding-required domains.
Agreed. I kinda concluded that the expected `doctor` usage is to have an agent run it for you and then they can try to figure it out when `doctor` can’t fix the issues.
I tried both Beads and Gas Town and had the same experience.
These fully vibe coded tools seem to have near zero QA. The fact that they ship with a `doctor` command that you regularly need to run (even if you didn’t change anything about your environment) tells you all you need to know.
> Is a google employee in US somehow more competent than the one in India?
Yes. I can’t speak for Google employees but I’ve worked with Indian FTE teams at another big tech company. Indian FTEs are generally less competent than US FTEs at the same level. Upper management knows this and they don’t care because US employees are 3-4x more expensive, so they can hire 3 senior engineers in India for the cost of 1 in the US, which is still a good deal on a cost-per-output basis.
I think the reason for this competency discrepancy may be the huge incentive to move to the US because of pay. In other words, if Indian engineers were as good as their US counterparts, they would move to the US and make 3-4x as much, which leaves only those incapable or unwilling to move in the Indian market.
I believe Amazon significantly increased their offers last year. FB was one of my other offers and they couldn’t match my top offers after negotiation, so I just declined. That being said, it is possible that a combination of my location (Seattle) and career stage (upper side of Senior level) are at play here.
Senior SWE in the tech industry is typically someone with > 5 YOE who has led at least one big project and is considered a leader in their immediate team. It is not a management role.
Yeah, I’d probably work more than 40 hours a week at Amazon, which is why I didn’t take the offer (I accepted another offer with similar comp and my WLB is pretty good).
Considering Google/Facebook your “peers” is a common mistake people at MSFT make when they complain about comp. MSFT targets 67 percentile pay (which is actually above median, contrary to what everyone says), while GOOG/FB target > 95. They may be your competitors, but they are certainly not your peers (at least market-wise). Microsoft has managed to have great business results with 67 percentile SWE talent for a decade.
My Amazon offer from last year was one of my highest ($500K first year TC for senior SWE in Seattle). Amazon has trouble retaining talent but I doubt compensation is the real cause (at least for recent hires).