I think the issue is that some of us like the drudgery!

Some of us like lifting weights too but you can't fault someone for using a backhoe instead of a shovel when they want to build a house.

this is a very interesting line of analogy .. allow me to broaden it with "a backhoe cannot do the mantle inlays with black oak" and at the same time "your backhoe is done in four days but the entire home still needs building"

A backhoe cannot do the mantle inlays with black oak, but maybe a CNC router can do most of the work for you except the final detailing and fitting.

Will I still like it?

Once pricing comes into play, you might.

These metaphors are always so facile - if a backhoe dug a randomized foundation for your house (all the while apologizing and re-digging) I'm pretty sure you would not use it over the shovel. A better analogy would've been using dynamite to dig a foundation over using a shovel.

More like house flippers drywalling over the bad wiring and weird framing. "Looks good!"

World is bigger than US, much bigger. So is HN audience.

And in the rest of the world do the people doing the “drudgery” get paid more than the people who lead the work and design?

Great! Can you point us to a public successful example of your work using AI for implementation?

Every project I’ve done that integrates with and LLM and/or used for coding the customer has paid my employer for and I have never gotten a less than perfect CSAT score from my customer or my PM. They have all been done on time, on budget and met both the functional and non functional requirements.

I’ve implemented LLM based “intent processing” instead of old school “give it a list of every possible phrase that someone could use to activate an intent” for call centers for a couple of states and a couple colleges - I worked for AWS ProServe directly in the pub sec division and now work for a third party consulting company.

Think of an intent as something like asking Siri for driving directions, setting an alarm etc.

One of my specialties is Amazon Connect for hosted call centers - based on the same service that Amazon uses internally. Think of the difference between how Google Assistant and Alexa worked pre LLM and how Siri works today compared to tool calling that modern LLMs used.

That’s just using an LLM in a product.

As far as how I use it everyday? I am a staff consultant and in the previous times, I needed at least a couple of developers under me just to get the grunt work done on time. Now I can just treat Claude Code and Codex as faster, more accurate ticker takers.

Of course I’m not going to dox myself (more than I probably already have) or break any NDAs

And before the gate keeping starts about “I must be inexperienced”. My first time coding was on a 1Mhz Apple //e in assembly and BASIC in 1986. During the first decade and a half of my professional career, I programmed in C targeting everything from mainframes to PCs to Windows CE ruggedized devices.

It’s called NDAs and I in fact did reply. Hours before yours