A seasoned veteran said his fellow software engineers need to learn “how to say ‘no,’ real fast” or risk getting crushed by AI.
Steve Yegge, who worked with Jeff Bezos at Amazon early on before 12-year stint at Google, said AI is set up in a way that can really drain you.
“There’s a vampiric effect with AI, where it gets you excited, and you work really hard, and you’re capturing a ton of value,” he recently told the “The Pragmatic Engineer” newsletter/podcast.
Yegge said companies also need to understand that while agentic AI may make engineers more productive than ever before, pushing the limit will just burn out their workforce.
“I seriously think founders and company leaders and engineering leaders at all levels, all the way down to line managers, have to be aware of this and realize that you might only get three productive hours out of a person who’s vibe coding at max speed,” he said. “So, do you let them work for three hours a day? The answer is yes, or your company’s going to break.”
Engineers are beginning to vocalize concerns about “AI fatigue.” Business Insider recently spoke to Siddhant Khare, who builds AI tools, and wrote an essay about how AI has accelerated the pace of his job to a point that it was burning him out.
Yegge said that his fellow engineers need to set boundaries when they are vibe coding.
“People have to learn the art of pushing back,” he said.
Until then, Yegge said he and his fellow engineers are napping and growing grumpier.
“I find myself napping during the day, and I’m talking to friends at startups, and they’re finding themselves napping during the day,” he said. “We’re starting to get tired and cranky.”
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