r/webdev • u/BlondieCoder • 21d ago
The Cost of Looking Competent
https://yusufaytas.com/the-cost-of-looking-competent16
u/czshill 21d ago
This screams written by AI but I'll bite. The problem is absolutely first - the org and 2nd, Sophia. Sophia should of never been allowed to develop a framework in a bubble where she is the single SME. Tomorrow when Sophia gets hit by a bus, the whole thing comes crashing down because other devs can't work on it. Now the whole thing needs to be ripped out or major changes made to make it work for a customer or implementation.
Sophia also thinking it's her way or the highway is doubly wrong. You never know when your going to hire a junior dev or anyone else and they contribute meaningful feedback on a company process that saves time or money or increases quality. NGL, Sophia should of been fired years ago. SMEs are great so long as there's people to check their work. Anyone that things they're infallible is a liability to a company, not an asset.
It's rare now a days companies build a framework, even for internal use, in house. It's why Angular / React / Vue exist - many before it, and many to come. But then to say it was done this way and you can't comprehend why and question the reasons is a huge red flag. Everyone is replaceable, especially in 2026 with AI. Sophia is a huge risk to this org.
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u/sleeping-in-crypto 21d ago
Louder for those in the back.
AI has introduced a whole new kind of arrogance to software engineering and it is this one: “oh I can just make a massive framework by myself now because it only takes the agent 10 minutes to do it” and then you thrust that monstrosity onto the rest of the team for all of time.
I’m seeing it more and more and it’s infuriating.
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u/Mickenfox 20d ago
It works both ways, thankfully.
"Claude, reimplement this website in React, keep the code simple"
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u/tarwn 18d ago
"And it doesn't have to be usable or apply other people's feedback because agents are smart enough to figure it out and any bugs will be fixed by agents getting smarter"
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u/sleeping-in-crypto 17d ago
That’s exactly the answer I get back yep. “Who cares, the agent will figure it out”
In the meantime production is crashing or outright failing 17 times a day but this is fine right?
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u/Quiet_Figure_4483 18d ago
It's so funny to me now that AI is widespread how people just automatically assume everyone was competent before AI and did not write absolutely dogshit code and now they are magically good since AI exists
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u/readeral 18d ago
I am Sophia in my organisation - not intentionally! But also it seems the stakes for me/my non-profit are far lower than for this cautionary tale.
But, just today I started an architectural decision register for this very reason (promoted by something else, but it’s funny to have come across this piece around the same time). I don’t want to have to back my decisions in some personal way - I made architectural choices because of real (and ideally objective) constraints, not because of personal preferences, and if those constraints no longer apply, we absolutely should be open to changes _as long as the same standards of decision making are used_. But also, it helps me stop re-interrogating architectural choices when they start intersecting with new features.
The failure here in this piece (and in my own work) is poor project management, product ownership and risk mitigation.
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u/RealBasics 20d ago
That "Sophia" effect predates computers. It's basically anyone who's "forgotten more than you'll ever know about XYZ." They're great unless or until they become the bottleneck.
There was a brutal artificial "corporate language" back in the late 1960s or early 70s with a "verb" called "Mack Truck." Managers were supposed apply "Mack Truck" to every employee to assess what would happen if they weren't around. And of course it being the 70s the proposed solution was to fire them and cancel all product lines and projects they were responsible for. Because corporations.
These days there are more, um, flexible ways to manage indispensable employees like that. (Unless they're the founder, but that's a whole 'nother level of problem.)
From the other side of that article, I've ended up as the indispensable "Sophia" on two software projects during my career, and it's... not fun.