How do I catch up after a year break from SWE?
Posted by PrincipleSevere1418@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 40 comments
Seems like so much changed in the software world since I was last employed. I've been unemployed for the last year but got a job recently as a senior. I'm worried since all these AI agents blew up recently and I dont have much experience outside of some Github copilot use at my old job.
Seems like everyone is using Claude or vibe coding to some degree but I don't have much experience using these tools.
Is there a lot to know in regards to Claude? How does it change the development process? Is there anything I need to do to "catch up" and be productive ASAP?
7 YoE. US based.
Suspicious_State_318@reddit
It’s honestly not really a skill. Unless you’re in an early stage startup where you’re expected to pump out 20 PRs a day, you could just use it to ask questions and write some code for you that you don’t feel like doing manually. Anything else isn’t really necessary.
overzealous_dentist@reddit
imo managing context is a skill, but it's a low bar to clear if you know the basics. I still see people in this sub complaining about AI constantly who could solve their own problems with it if they just used the right context
rosalina_dreams@reddit
basics yes but if you're working on many, complex systems, it's more like advanced management. And where are you going to get the skillset to develop and debug with multiple agents at the same time besides work? Or even the tokens to practice?
I'm thinking building a simulation with it could be a cool project. Have generated bug categories implemented randomly and you have to debug with an agent that doesn't know of it, and the PR to fix. I actually think you'd make every employer laugh. And ace the "can use ai" portion of the interview. Throw in SDD and you're solid.
Suspicious_State_318@reddit
Could you give an example of when you needed to use multiple agents at the same time?
rosalina_dreams@reddit
Need? Never. It's a throughput thing. If an employer is hiring and 1 candidate is comfortably working with 3+ agents at once, managing each appropriately, building and debugging, and can finish tasks 2x as fast as everyone else, with the same accuracy, that engineer will get the job.
And yeah, you may read, and think "with the same accuracy" is carrying some weight. And it is. Because there are engineers who can do that. And more are getting there every day.
Suspicious_State_318@reddit
Maybe you do become more efficient in the short term that way but you’re also further removed from the codebase. When you code manually you’re reinforcing the mental model you have of how your codebase works. Tickets become easier because you can already tell just by reading them what files and functions you would need to change and that saves you a lot of time when developing. Bugs become easier to spot and it becomes easier to design and spec out features.
It’s also much easier to maintain quality code and discipline when the developers are using ai as an assistant instead of fully trusting it. Good quality codebases are much easier to build upon for both humans and coding assistants.
ExperiencedDevs-ModTeam@reddit
Rule 5: No “What Should I Learn” Questions
No questions like “Should I learn C#” or “Should I switch jobs into a language I don’t know?”
Discussion about industry direction or upcoming technologies is fine, just frame your question as part of a larger discussion (“What have you had more success with, RDBMS or NoSQL?”) and you’ll be fine.
tl;dr: Don’t make it about you/yourself.
LiteraryLatina@reddit
How did you manage to snag a role? I’ve been on a break and really don’t want to reach a 10 month mark but I’m worried that the break might be held against me at a later date.
I hate this job market
mmjI@reddit
Recruiters are your best friend in this market
zicher@reddit
It makes development boring af. Write a few sentences. Wait a while. Read a bunch of word vomit. Read code (if you're feeling like it that day). Repeat till you hate yourself.
Napalm_Oilswims@reddit
This is written as a joke but while i value the productivity boost, reduction of boilerplate and all the other benefits of agent-assisted development the cognitive load after even a few hours of heavy use is something i don't see talked about often. Some days i feel like an absolute zombie having to read so much text and output, the newer models are the worst of them all!
Teh_Original@reddit
I'm not sure why individual contributors are valuing perceived productivity boost. To quote Office Space: "Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime."
Napalm_Oilswims@reddit
Getting more accomplished in a day is satisfying to me and is good for my position since I have a large, visible stake in my team's delivery. I half-enjoy the work i do, unlike many people apparently.
OdeeSS@reddit
I give my agents specific instructions to to be concise in response and make very small testable changes as we go. The fact that it still gives me the entire "stream of conscious" thought process is annoying.
zicher@reddit
Thanks. I feel seen.
Beginning-Cream7813@reddit
As I am not in management, I really don't care about productivity boosts.
OdeeSS@reddit
The waiting is killing me. I got into development because I love to use my brain and go deep into a problem. All the mini breaks in between AI responses ruin the flow.
MichelangeloJordan@reddit
Hah! Jokes on you, I don’t need to do any of that stuff because I already hate myself.
zicher@reddit
There are many levels of self-hatred, my friend
overzealous_dentist@reddit
if it's vomiting, tell it not to vomit.
if you're waiting, open another terminal on another branch. there's no reason to sit around waiting
lasooch@reddit
What is "context switching", Alex?
overzealous_dentist@reddit
this sub is a very damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't place, huh.
someone complains about waiting, you tell them how not to
someone immediately complains about not-waiting
lasooch@reddit
The thing is, if you're gonna use AI, the wait is the lesser of two evils, yet it is extremely frustrating. The flow is killed entirely.
I'm not complaining about the opposite, I'm complaining about both. Just let me tradcode like god intended.
zicher@reddit
You know, I should try telling it not to vomit
overzealous_dentist@reddit
yes, you should. it only speaks the way you tell it to speak. if you don't like vomit, tell it.
Cartindale_Cargo@reddit
Yeah there is, cuz we want to.
Terrible-Garlic7834@reddit
The word vomit accesses parts of my brain that I don’t regularly use lol. It’s kind of hard to read soooo many paragraphs of something “sounding correct” and think hard about why it could not be
zicher@reddit
Yes I think this is the most exhausting part
ItSeemedSoEasy@reddit
Spend an evening watching some YouTube/twitch videos of people using it.
You'll pick up more in that evening than anything we can tell you here.
The trick is finding real developers to watch. Also, you want videos of the last 3 months.
Anthropic also have a load of documentation here: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/overview
Worth reading through, note that it has a really weird navigation that's easy to miss. And is a bit overly verbose. Probably because it was made with AI.
But it gives you an idea about what you can do, though the videos will show you what actually works.
ShroomSensei@reddit
Yes just start forcing yourself to use it. I went from never having used it in my previous job to (in comparison) heavy adoption \~6 months ago. Half of the battle is figuring out what it can actually do.
dvorgson@reddit
C. Do Beej's sockets guide or something. If you want to be an agentic coder idk
kogitatr@reddit
Hellointerview (I'm not affiliated to them) is a good place to start, get urself warm and ready for the market also mean you are more ready to work again. Claude is great and all but nothing much changed for us seniors; decision making, technical vision etc remain same. But, learning when, what and how to delegate to ai would help a lot
sinisoul@reddit
I took a sabbatical and woke up in the middle of the Claude/Codex era. I did a bunch of small projects to get my feet wet then started working on a larger project to see how I if/how I could completely automate everything I do.
I haven't really handwritten any code in a long time. I spend most of my time going back and forth on designing a feature and planning the implementation. Once I'm satisfied there is enough detail for the agent to not screw up mid-implementation I just have it write it. (Agent here is a catch all term for an instance of an LLM in a new session with a primer either from the parent LLM or one you supply)
Honestly it isn't much of a change of what I was doing before in the structured environments it just involves less code writing.
dacydergoth@reddit
Learn MCP (Model context protocol) because that is the currently (very insecure) way that most AI systems access your exposed APIs. Build a WAF around your critical APIs and protect it from any MCP servers which may be spun up by shadow IT in your org. Emplace an AI integration strategy which specifies what authority, authentication, authorization and access controls are required for AI to access your environments. Define an AI agent registry
KronktheKronk@reddit
You just do it, like everything else you've done in your career
behusbwj@reddit
Emphasis has been moved from writing code to reviewing code. People with patience to review and/or steer AI slop will be fine. Others will produce slop and spend a lot of time fixing stupid bugs
Old_McDonald@reddit
5YoE here. AI has taken over coding but knowing your stuff is more important now than ever. The job has moved into mostly reviewing code, including your own. Getting your AI tools set up correctly is very important too, MCP servers, plugins, well defined architecture all play big parts in this.
This is my opinion and I’m sure people have different experiences. I work at a very large company this is a non-tech company.
duffedwaffe@reddit
I would say just familiarize yourself with what you can accomplish with stuff like Claude and what the limitations are. Try building a small project and ask the AI to do small task for you, get a feel for how it works. You're not likely to find anywhere to work that won't expect you to use the tools to some degree (unfortunately).
Antoak@reddit
samesies but in SRE/DevOps
Jealous you snagged a senior position, I settled for a downgrade to associate
MoreHuman_ThanHuman@reddit
get used to using prompts to build fast...