I think for the near future we're going to continue seeing feedback loop be the primary way we interact with coding agents simply because we generally don't specify all coding tasks with no ambiguity. If we did, then we'd already have some pseudo code that the agent could just directly translate into working code / validate with testing.
I often feel that instead of being a developer, my role is reduced to being an entry-level intern* whose only job is to copy and paste errors and screenshots. In many cases, like when using Artifacts or Canvas, this process should be fully automated. For me, besides hallucinations and forgetting, this is the most annoying part of code development with AI.
* Interns should not be doing that either, but I didn't know how to convey it better.
I think seeing a correlation between software startup adoption and user-facing app development work makes a lot of sense. The advantage for a startup in delivering user appreciable features is high. An entrenched business might be more focused on reliability, security, enterprise readiness and these seem like more risky things to outsource to LLMs which are unproven. But a startup that is trying to get their first 1000 customers is in a more "move fast and break things" mentality and the additional risk of unproven LLM code is much lower.
But those adoption rates and the percentage of code written by LLMs is high. What we aren't seeing in this graph are the total set of startups and the percentage of use within that larger set. But if LLM code does make startups faster to market, faster to PMF, faster to growth, etc. then this is going to be transformative. If the next billion dollar unicorn is written 79% by an AI, we're in for a new world.
> As AI systems become capable of building larger-scale pieces of software, will developers shift to mostly managing and guiding these systems, rather than writing code themselves?
I'm coding about 4 hours per day using LLMs primarily. I am trying to get the LLM to write as much of the code as I can. My experience, with the best LLM coding agents I have tried (Cursor using Claude variants and Gemini 2.5 Pro in the browser) is that they need very careful and continual guidance. The errors creep in and compound if you aren't vigilant.
The pace of improvement, however, is pretty remarkable. I think about 75% of the code in a new project I am working on has been written by the LLM. My biggest challenge, actually, is to avoid taking the reigns. Sometimes, the LLM goes off the rails and I think "It will be easier just to do it myself". However, if I catch myself and instead try to write a more detailed instruction, I can often get the LLM to do the thing perfectly.
It is a similar shift in mindset to when I became a manager. I can no longer just roll up my sleeves and fix the problem, I have to manage the individual who I assign to the problem. Every instinct I have is "I know how to do this, I can do it better than you", but I have to resist.
> But in a relative sense, coding is among the most developed uses of AI in the economy.
This is a bit scary for some developers, but if the skill of instructing AIs effectively is deeply learned then it may be even more valuable than coding. This use of AI is new and if we can manage to instruct ourselves out of a job, we'll be the seasoned AI whisperers that other industries look to for guidance on how to replicate the result.
It probably depends on what you are working on, but I find it more time effective to fix smaller problems myself instead of spending context space on revisions. There are benefits to training juniors, but LLMs learning doesn't extend beyond the current session. For this reason, I focus on revising my system prompts, which now include having LLMs review the proposed code against current documentation and specs for consistency, updating the docs after each code change (pending my approval), etc.
I still haven't figured out how to have separate agents do coding, reviews, and testing, which would be incredibly useful and possibly more context/price-efficient. It would be particularly helpful in projects where small code changes have profound impact but are hard to detect. Unlike when working on UIs where it is relatively easy to spot deviations from the spec, when I am doing more analytical work, an LLM dropping a few of a 100 features or subtly changing my sampling algorithm requires constant vigilance.
jinay•3h ago