this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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I mean... if you take into account fair price of utilities (water and electric) and skyrocketing costs of RAM... I don't fully disagree.
Ballparking, but 50% of an engineer's job being "boilerplate" and "charlie work" sounds reasonable to me. Maybe even 75%. That IS what generative AI is really good at. It is the kind of work that you can have a particularly ambitious student intern do.
What makes a good engineer is the ability to verify that work. In software this is "code review". And the other aspect is actual innovation. Solving particularly complex problems or breaking a problem down into manageable and verifiable tasks.
And... guess how you maintain your skills to be able to do that? That's right. Charlie Work.
Which is the problem. Managers (and wannabe managers) just see short term gains. So they want EVERYTHING to be done with "AI" because they want to bulk fire people and reduce operating costs. And they don't at all care that they are causing a massive brain drain because that is next quarter's problem.
But yeah. Use generative AI to accelerate your workflow. But also understand when it is very much worth taking your time. Either to keep those skills fresh or just because you can do it in a "fun" way. And if you feel that ALL of your workload can be done by chatgpt... maybe think about how much cheaper a claude subscription is compared to your salary and benefits.