- A software professional claims AI tools have increased employee workloads significantly
- Pre-AI project timelines included built-in inefficiencies and longer development phases
- AI has shortened project delivery times but increased review tasks for senior developers
A software professional has caught social media's attention after claiming that artificial intelligence (AI) tools have dramatically increased employee workloads. In a viral post, the developer with five years of experience compared the "pre-AI era" (2021-2024) with the current AI landscape. The techie argued that AI has dismantled the tech industry's "carefully designed inefficiencies," ultimately eliminating downtime and making workplace life harder for employees.
The techie provided a rough breakdown of how project timelines used to be divided in the pre-AI era where they often had to lead a team of interns.
"2021-24: Back then, work used to be amazing. In order to build a crud API, I used to quote one day for scoping, one day for tech spec, one day for spec review, three days for development, one day for testing, one day for PR review, and one day for prod go-live," the techie said.
"Used to manage 4 interns and I used to get a free pass from doing any legit work because I “was managing interns”.Projects used to span 6 months, where most of the work used to be done in the last month."
However, since the rise of AI, the timeline of shipping any project has reduced significantly. The problems were being compounded with juniors using AI to ship code, without knowing what it contains, which increased the workload of seniors.
"I manage juniors and give them tasks and they come back in a few hours saying they've completed it. And I have to sit through endless lists of task reviews," the techie said.
"Not just the reviews; now I am expected to actually do work too and code as much in a week as I used to do in 3 months way back in the early 20s. AI is ruining the carefully designed inefficiencies of the tech industry and making life difficult.
Check The Viral Post Here:
Anyone else feel we're having to work more due to AI?
by u/ExtraChubbyPikachu in developersIndia
Also Read | Tech Company Lures Interns With Rs 35 Lakh Package, Then Blames AI And Ghosts Them All
'Expected To Deliver Faster'
As the post gained traction, one of the social media users said: "True. Main issue is sometimes non-tech management thinks that AI is kind of a genie and it can do anything in a few hours."
Another added: "Yes, we are expected to deliver faster by pushing more and more code. Devs are themselves not reading what is being generated; sometimes generated code is good, sometimes there are errors."
A third commented: "Everyone in the same situation, ppl are forced to work like machines, timelines are getting impractical. Some kind of hurry in every project to just windoff asap and get the next one. This is causing a breathless rat race."
A fourth said: "As a senior who is managing juniors, the juniors come back with completed tasks / PRs in a jiffy. If I point a design error, they come back again in minutes saying that it's fixed. They are not investing in design, architectural, clean code decisions. This is putting a lot of work on seniors who needs to review the change thoroughly. It's as if I'm doing their work too."
