1) Understands the problem ("what are comments?")
2) Accepts that it is a problem ("how can more comments be a bad thing?")
3) Cares enough to solve the problem ("is this issue really a priority to solve right now? just accept the PR and we'll go back and fix if needed some other time cough never cough")
4) Believes you (this can take many forms, but the most common is, subconsciously, "this other engineer says it's not a problem, so I'll just assume it's not since that's easier")
All of these logistical, political and social factors are "the ocean"
To be fair, I would not be surprised.
"My peers are all bad", "Management has no idea what's going on", "My boss is out of touch", "My staff keep screwing up".
But if you're consistently seeing the problems while everyone else becomes defensive, you (that think that way) need to learn how to communicate effectively in a way that doesn't result in being 'the baddie' and solve the interpersonal dynamic along with the technical problems. "Crucial Conversations" is a good place to start.
If you really want to save your career, learning how to have real conversations is a vital skill.
Asking because when I was at capital one, certain comments or questions about topics like this, would actually get you noticed negatively by your manager and being disruptive to what leadership wants hurts your career.
In fact being the one to ask and point out questions like yours ultimately got me PIP'ed and removed from the company. So, like, yeah, being vulnerable and the first one to tell the truth is risky. That's why the bystander effect can happen and in politics or risky situations silence is a common response, and why we don't have more courageous people doing the right thing - because the risk is higher on the person speaking up and the rewards aren't disproportionately in their favor (but are evenly distributed though, so its not favorable for you as I learned from a game theory perspective to voice up / defend certain stances).
I started my first post-Capital One job a few months ago, and I'm still not used to the fact that this company expects everybody working here to still be working here in two years. Most employers are not going through everybody with a fine tooth comb every 6 months hunting for any hint of an excuse to PIP them.
Besides, GP was not talking about corporate, but about the inability to even suggest an improved usage of LLMs among their developer peers, as if every line of code generated by AI is now gospel and questioning it is treated as heresy. This level of defeatism is beyond cynical and approaching childish.
There's a reason 3rd places exists. There's a social construct that off-work discussion (even when on-work) stays off work.
If your coworker is professional and cares about keeping channels open, they too will respect the unspoken rules that govern 3rd place neutral locations.
Blame it on the alcohol later on if it actually pisses someone off.
Not anymore these days.
And, really, it works. You can copy and paste between tickets and Claude, and then do manual testing. Then you tell Claude to self-review for clarity and minimalism, and stop worrying. Sure, today it's not as good as a human, but for almost all the code out there, it gets the job done. There's no skill needed any more, and if the boss doesn't care about quality, I don't see why I should.
There may not be a career left in software development with these monstrosities, but if there is, it's in using decades of experience to get the abominations to produce something other than unreadable dreck.
If the code itself truly doesn't matter any more, programmers will no longer be paid.
All the execs know that they can refresh the screen faster and see the features for marketing and sales.
When has engineering ever had a voice anyway? The bean counters have been looking to cut us out since the inception of our industry.
In this fucked up job market, it is easier said than done.
I feel like it's all just perception and how companies can sell their stories to investors or potential acquirers, and everything else can be punted and dealt with later when we get acquired or when share prices are a zillion dollars etc.
It's a race to the bottom, for sure.
I don’t have time to go through and flag everything or even read the thousands of lines of code changes that are happening.
Corporate Capitalism's main innovation was virtualizing feudalism. Now anyone with a bit of cash flow can be a feudal lord with peasants to do his will. No need to maintain land or fight over it with other feudal lords. There's still fighting, naturally, but now the game isn't zero sum.
The serfs don't get any real say in this model. At best you can bend the lord's ear if you're sufficiently trusted an advisor. But part of the reason you're trusted is to be trusted not to treat the lord like he's too much of an idiot.
A huge problem is that capitalism rewards cash flows and accumulated capital so powerfully that lots of other things just don't matter, potentially for a very long time. Look at GitHub. This leads to immensely extended fuck around phases and "find out" looks like IBM (fossilization and bizarre holdings corporation / dead company parking lot) just as often as it looks like Enron.
I am a programmer but also in management, and if I knew my team thought like that I would be horrified. We absolutely care about what the team members want , like, hate etc. I for once would love someone to bring up stuff like this to me. As long as they are as open minded about things as they would like me to be, there is no issue. But it’s a serious issue to pretend everything is fine while thinking like you say.
Do the people above you in management care as much? It's the top levels of management that decide hiring, firing and budgets.
Reframe your context, pretend you're in a communist society, and you could be making the exact same point about speaking up against the grain being bad for you. It feels as though people are brainwashed by anti-capitalism sentiment at the moment, unable to see outside of that context.