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Meta, and other large companies have been encouraging PMs to code, while I've seen many negative responses from engineers having to code review, debug, deal with production issues, etc. stemming from crappy code they don't understand. Metrics and KPIs are being gamed into stupid incentives like lines of code, commits, and tickets closed. Leadership claims they are aware of Goodhart's Law, but their actions show otherwise.
Overall the rise of business types in tech company leadership has led to a drop in engineering quality, a rise in short term metrics, and fiascos like the COVID overhiring into multiple rounds of layoffs.
By purrcat259 2026-03-045:244 reply An easy correction is to only merge PRs from folks who are on the on call rota.
Those not on rota can either join or have their PR receive heavy scrutiny
There are various technical corrections, with arguable pros and cons. However, they do not match the underlying problem stated above:
> the rise of business types in tech company leadership
By justonceokay 2026-03-0415:061 reply The fact that they are PMs is a tragedy of circumstance, not a moral failing. If they are willing to go on-call for their work they will lose that childlike innocence and become engineers very quickly.
By steve1977 2026-03-0416:52 > they will lose that childlike innocence and become engineers very quickly.
I don't think so. Not everyone has an engineer mindset (or a PM mindset, for that matter). There's a reason these people ended up where they ended up.
By badgersnake 2026-03-047:482 reply Nah, the rota is large enough that it will likely be somebody else’s problem anyway and the chances are even if it does land on them they just won’t answer the phone.
Punishing mistakes with unpaid overtime has never been a good approach to quality. It just teaches management that they can get away with low quality because the engineers will pick up the pieces in their own time.
By gray_-_wolf 2026-03-0411:193 reply > unpaid overtime
Through European lenses this part seems insane. It is work, so pay me for it :) Every oncall rotation I was part of ever was paid, is the "unpaid" part a US thing, or was I just lucky?
By titanomachy 2026-03-0411:551 reply Working as a SWE at Meta in the US pays 3-5x more than a European tech job (outside of Switzerland). They are paid for it.
Paid oncall in US big tech is the exception rather than the norm (notably, Google has paid oncall)
By titanomachy 2026-03-0412:552 reply This is of course a complicated question. The US has many tax jurisdictions and widely variable cost of living, and jobs vary a lot. But I could compare, say, a Google engineer in Paris vs Seattle.
A Google senior software engineer in Paris earns €168k per year (according to levels.fyi) and takes home €96k after a 43% effective tax rate. A Google senior engineer in Seattle earns €336k and takes home €239k after 29% taxes, a 2.5x increase in take-home pay. According to Numbeo, cost of living in Seattle is 15-25% higher.
Of course, in America you have to fund your own retirement. As long as the pensions plans remain solvent, "savings" are a lot less important in Europe.
Anecdotally, I know people who were able to opt out of working altogether after 10-15 years in a large tech company in the US. I don't think this is common in Europe.
What use is earning all that extra cash if you're working yourself to death with no way to enjoy the money? I work in a large international org and despite the people in the US earning a lot more than their EU counterparts, they also pretty much universally seem more miserable, are working all sorts of odd hours, have basically no holidays (the amount of times I've gotten a "Vacation again!?" questions from people in the US is insane to me), have to stress more about doctors visits and stuff like that.
I've had a lot of opportunities to be earning a lot more than I do now by moving to the US, but seeing the state of the US I'm more than happy with my 32 hour contract and 5 weeks of vacations that I get to actually enjoy.
By titanomachy 2026-03-0510:59 It's a reasonable question, and one that I've debated at length with friends, but which cannot be addressed satisfactorily in a brief exchange of internet comments :)
During the golden years of big tech in the states, when employee retention was king and it was pretty much impossible to fire someone who wasn't completely useless, I think it was a pretty good deal. Although East Coast work culture has always been pretty intense as you describe, a lot of West Coast people I know had good balance between work and everything else. Some people chose to work very hard and chase promotions, and others chose to go home early and spend their time with family or doing hobbies, and both ways were considered acceptable. The better companies offered 5 weeks of vacation, and people would go completely offline during that time, although some people would have to be cajoled by their managers to actually take the time off.
Recently it feels like things in the US have gotten much more intense and stressful, although the pay is as high as ever it does feel less worth it. People compete with their coworkers not just for promotion but for survival. There are still pockets where you can have both high pay and some sense of job security, but they are much scarcer than before.
By gzread 2026-03-0612:56 I've heard of an American senior executive who was assigned to an Australian office and at first thought everyone was lazy but then after actually working there for a while he was sad to have to go back.
>Of course, in America you have to fund your own retirement.
Isn't social security a thing? Plus employer funded 401K also?
>As long as the pensions plans remain solvent, "savings" are a lot less important in Europe.
"As long as" is doing a lot of lifting here, and that's enough if you're lucky enough to own your own property and not have to pay market rate rent at your old age.
By dragonwriter 2026-03-0416:231 reply > Isn't social security a thing?
Social Security alone will, at best, slightly mitigate poverty. 401Ks are generally employee-funded, with some firms providing matching funds, especially during good economic times and where the firm is in a field where the main area of labor relied on relatively scarce so that there is competition for talent.
EDIT: The line about social security is a little inaccurate in the extreme case; its actually technically possible to reach a moderate income ($62k/year) on Social Security, if you have a long enough working career (35 years or more) earning at the maximum taxed wages for Social Security (currently $185k+) and claim at or beyond the age that maximizes the benefit calculation (70 years).
By joe_mamba 2026-03-0420:38 >Social Security alone will, at best, slightly mitigate poverty.
It's the same in Europe
By closewith 2026-03-0412:11 Unpaid overtime is common across the continent for salaried positions. There's only a handful of jurisdictions where it's not the norm.
By bravetraveler 2026-03-0411:38 In the US it's common to either negotiate 'differential' pay for the responsibility, or as one might see in this thread, get suckered into it for free.
By snypher 2026-03-052:28 I think they meant to say that if the person isn't on the A-team call list, they aren't entitled to contribute without scrutiny.
By pwagland 2026-03-049:56 This "receive heavy scrutiny" is part of the problem that is raised in the article though:
> You are friends with all the senior TLs, so can get them to review your code, but this is not a high-leverage use of time.
And then, tying back to ops comment, the engineer gets pinged for their bad metric, because of this additional review.
By duskdozer 2026-03-048:14 If 24/7 availability is required, the company should simply hire someone to work those hours, perhaps in a different timezone if needed. Many mistakes are going to be the result of management pressures to "ship" too quickly, incentivizing cutting corners, which someone will have to deal with at some point, even if it's during their regular working hours.
Funny story: I work at Meta and posted a version of this internally in response the bizarre pressure and support for PMs landing prod diffs (the response was very positive FWIW).
By medi8r 2026-03-0410:22 Quick everyone, create decoy repos for them to vibe in. When the feature doesn't appear "oh feature gate system has an incident try tomorrow". Even better make the decoy repo have an insufferable pipeline that always breaks and get them in a loop trying to fix it. An adveserial "red team" LLM can keep it broken! But tantalizingly with different problems so progress is felt.
By dmckinno 2026-03-043:43 I don't remember the exact name, but the one about AI productivity. It should be trivial to find my name from my handle, so just look at my profile.
By game_the0ry 2026-03-0415:18 > Leadership claims they are aware of Goodhart's Law, but their actions show otherwise.
Leadership will cherry pick metrics that are easy to game so they can make the next promo, and do say at the expense of company resources. This is a problem in every big corp not just tech.
By theshrike79 2026-03-0511:46 We're solving this with two different tracks for Vibed stuff and Actual Code.
Vibed stuff can do whatever it wants, with some basic CI checks and Agent instructions
BUT if any of that crosses specific thresholds (writes to dangerous APIs, reads from unvetted sources, is deployed on the public internet), an actual developer MUST review the code - with the associated costs billed to the creator's BU.
Works fine, zero projects have been made public yet, but we have a bunch of Vibed internal tools in use that can't be accessed outside our internal network (or VPN) that are actually helping people do their work more efficiently.
By mountainriver 2026-03-053:01 Good business types can massively improve a tech company. The issue is there aren’t many good ones
By Bridged7756 2026-03-044:2512 reply Our job is done for. We will be shown the door, and everyone will rejoice. Everyone will live in a happy world where you'll doddle a house and Claude will build you a next generation SaaS that makes you millions. Managers will do the job of engineers, by just telling LLMs to make an app or to make money or something. C-suites will have agents doing the jobs of managers, and CEOs will run entire companies with a Claude $200 subscription alone. It is truly the next thing, and the future, probably happening in the next 2 years, or in 2 years in 2 years.
Yesterday I had an interview, but I got rejected. They decided to go for a manager with a Claude subscription who vibe-coded a weather app.
This is the end of software engineering.
I got laid off at a job where this applied, then at another company got rejected because they cancelled the position altogether to use Agentic Coding by Microsoft instead.
Then I joined a small consultancy that just lets me build however I want. There's no reviews, no sprint reviews, no evaluation. They trust that you work on what is important.
While this is a very messy and unmaintained workflow, it is a lot nicer and I am honestly wondering if Scrum is even necessary when you're only with 4-5 devs. Maybe it is to streamline newcomers? Because it took a bit of time to gather all the project info, but after that it was pretty relaxing.
I don't know, the market has shifted so much that I feel like I should probably be contempt with what I have.
> it is a lot nicer and I am honestly wondering if Scrum is even necessary when you're only with 4-5 devs.
Scrum is so woefully misunderstood.
It makes sense for small teams (yes, those 4-5 devs), if — and that's a big if — they work together on a single product. It is intended for developers to coordinate with each other, and also provides feedback loops for reality checks and for improvement of collaboration.
If those 4-5 developers work independently from one another, don't have to coordinate, don't need business to tell them what, out of various options, is the most important thing to work on right now, and don't need feedback from users to correct them along the way, then of course they don't need scrum.
By habinero 2026-03-048:34 Yeah, it's basically just formalized rules for communication, and I've been on teams where it worked great
I think it's awful when people follow it slavishly -- you chuck out anything that doesn't fit your team. And yeah, in the example you gave, it's a terrible fit lol
I have some stakeholders that do not know what they want and can't define it, so in desperation I dragged them thorough making fucking user stories -- user stories --and oh my god they loved it lol
They immediately started trying to apply it to everything too. I have regrets.
In my view, Scrum is a way to force dysfunctional teams to have some process, it is not useful for a team that is already delivering and working in a samll-a agile manner.
By ap99 2026-03-049:24 If you were to write down a guide on how to avoid team dysfunction, it would get a name or maybe an acronym.
If it worked someone would say, hey let's use this in more places.
If it worked really well others would say these aren't guidelines they're dogma.
Now we have scrum 2.0.
By dormento 2026-03-0413:06 A wise person once said "scrum turns dysfunctional teams into average teams. It also turns highly-motivated teams into average teams".
Scrum is management consulting companies trying to keep their job by turning something that would make them irrelevant (the agile manifesto) into something that requires tons of billable hours and useless qualifications like "scrum master". Seems to be working great for them.
By SAI_Peregrinus 2026-03-0416:541 reply The agile manifesto is about how to run a consulting company. "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation" is not something non-contracting software teams have to worry about, customer collaboration is important but there's no contract negotiation to prioritize it over.
By malnourish 2026-03-052:22 I've worked at three very different companies where at least one member of the software team had to essentially negotiate for their project's budget and scope (and tacitly their jobs in some cases).
By jpfromlondon 2026-03-0410:501 reply You're right, but you're going to be inundated with
"but real scrum has never been tried" types.
By p_v_doom 2026-03-059:17 > "but real scrum has never been tried" types.
Im one of these people. I do think for real that what most companies do is basically project management that wears the skin of scrum, and in most organizations beyond a certain size having that type of agile work and flexibility is basically impossible.
By brailsafe 2026-03-047:58 Scrum is just one of the early signs for me to start looking for a new job
Using just one $200 Claude subscription? What is that? 2024? Managers? Get on my level, son. It’ll be one man unicorns, new breed of CEOs running army of openclaws. I’ll have you fucking know that I’ve just launched “build me a next unicorn” prompt and 1000 agents have been running nonstop for a week. See me at the top of the AngelList, chump. Though I’ve probably won’t see you while you collect your unemployment check and food stamps.
By kekqqq 2026-03-0414:53 > Get on my level, son. It’ll be one man unicorns, new breed of CEOs running army of openclaws. I’ll have you fucking know that I’ve just launched “build me a next unicorn” prompt and 1000 agents have been running nonstop for a week.
Woah, what is that 2026? Emulating the economy using human flesh is obsolete. Just emulate the entire C-suite with the fleet of agents in the latent space of LLMs running on the orbital datacenters, powered by the same solar energy that used to keep humans warm.
By xantronix 2026-03-0417:33 I cannot tell if this is a genuine sentiment or parody; in this space, the two coincide with one another so frequently these days that it's hard to tell.
Please don't give up. This too shall pass. The bill for the worst excesses in this great experiment will come due. I can imagine the need to reckon with the growing technical and cognitive debt in a responsible way will be an existential issue for some enterprises. Somebody will need to step in and be the adults in the room.
By bitwize 2026-03-046:01 > by just telling LLMs to make an app or to make money or something.
Again, that is literally OpenAI's business model: burn money building ChatGPT until it's smart enough to tell them how to be profitable.
"That's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for 'em."
I appreciate this is satire, or marketing, but I'll engage: in this scenario how is the SaaS generating millions if anyone can just prompt their own?
Apparently it never occurs to the Believers to ask this exact question. They will pay an expensive subscription to vibe-earn money without working.
By gedy 2026-03-0415:20 One of my LinkedIn connections is at a place where the leadership brags about how easy it is to prompt their features. I'm like: are you f-ing stupid?
By array_key_first 2026-03-0423:231 reply The SaaS comes with a complimentary blow job.
In the future, prostitutes no longer work the street corner and you no longer roll up. No no, prostitutes vibe code apps nobody asks for with subtle hints in it that they're offering their services. Then, clients buy it as a proxy.
Law enforcement isn't prepared for this!
By dmonitor 2026-03-0423:49 I don't see this happening. Even today, I can place a bet on a prediction market that nobody women will give me a blow job tonight, a lady of the night then places a counter bet wagering that I will, and shows up at my house.
Services in individual apps are a thing of the past.
The end game is Zuckerberg sitting alone in his bunker and vibe-ceo'ing all of facebook.
By zombot 2026-03-0413:16 He'll also have to be vibe-eating because nobody is vibe-growing food any more. Everybody's too busy vibe-vacationing.
Simply put in your resume that you are a manager? And learn how to vibe code a weather app?
Wouldn’t be the first time I “lie” in my CV about my skills (“lie” in quotes because I can learn pretty fast; I know the fundamentals)
By BoneShard 2026-03-0421:09 Don't do that if you're in the US. I was laid off and finally got two offers, both places ran a background check and had all the information - my previous title, precise start - end time, etc. I've talked to one hiring manager and he told me that they had a lot of offers revoked due to failing these background checks recently.
By alchemism 2026-03-0410:08 Fake It ‘Till You Make It.
By MrScruff 2026-03-048:12 It should be obvious, particularly from this line:
> It is truly the next thing, and the future, probably happening in the next 2 years, or in 2 years in 2 years.
By HardCodedBias 2026-03-0415:16 "This is the end of software engineering."
Likely. The models have to improve, but the trend has been strong.
I have the misfortune to be required to use Gemini at Google, so I am not seeing it as clearly as others, but indeed the trend seems real.
Maybe, but why have (frankly not that intelligent/logical) PMs doing dev work vs the dev/eng types being the PMs with AI help?
Way to dunk on a whole group of people there. As an engineer turned PM, some of us are intelligent and logical and don’t want to do this stupid shit. And some engineers should never be PMs, I’ve seen some real disasters where engineering tried to play that role.
By gedy 2026-03-0422:18 Well, I mean if we’re talking about "we don’t need engineers anymore" why not do that?
By krater23 2026-03-044:31 HAHAHAHA. Dodged a bullet. Do you really want to work in a enterprice where HR is so dumb to buy this shit? Just think, they hire all your colleagues.
By butILoveLife 2026-03-0411:40 A few points to add:
>I have my wife vibe coding programs for her medical company. Its great. Saved her $200/mo so far from ADP
>I have tried encouraging others to vibe code, and they don't even know basic things like how to save files as .html... At best I've taught them to disagree with the AI and tell the AI "Make me a file I can click on".
>Being precise on the steps to solve a problem can be the difference between 1 shot success and floundering.
>Maybe do something that involves physical space and programming.
I am glad this essay was on the right side of the fence, otherwise I would have written it myself in response.. Our company is currently one of countless, where we just had a "get with the program" meeting with our PMs, where they showcased stuff they had added to our enterprise system in hours and days, and told us that they expected us to start delivering with the same tools techniques and speed.. Meanwhile, my team had spent that same working day before that meeting, trying to figure out why our production databases were suddenly getting hammered; it turned out some system was suddenly calling an expensive query endpoint 10k (10.000) times each hour, during business hours. Guess 3 times whose vibe-coding adventures were responsible for those 10k calls :-/.
Other than that, I noticed during the meeting, that their vibe-coded demo added module to our enterprise system only dealt with happy-path of the data updates, but would leave debris in our database for all the edge cases. Happy times. But heck yeah, let's just ram it straight into production. I wonder who will take care of adding support/clean up for the edge cases.
Move fast and break things. If it works well for a startup with 3 users and 1 developer, why not do the same for our critical infrastructure company? Openclaw, fire my engineering team and bring me more alcohol.
By array_key_first 2026-03-0423:19 Everybody and their mom loves to believe they're the hot young stuff on the block.
Even with a company like, say, Meta, they have more freedom to make mistakes than 100% of enterprise companies. Nobody cares too much if Facebook goes down or is slow or something.
But if you're selling to another business, they're gonna have your ass for breakfast for even the tiniest mistakes. As they should, they're paying you a lot of money!
By jamiemallers 2026-03-049:06 [dead]
