I'm ok with the risk because I typically am pretty explicit about telling the agent what to do - I don't do the loops like "Do this until X" where the agent can make up its own workflow

When i tell it to add features, it doesn't try to do crazy things like installing packages or making up new paradigms - I usually tell it to do those things when I need to

Maybe this is security cope but at this point you'll have to pry unrestricted yolo mode from my cold dead hands. Maybe I'll change my mind when I pwn myself accidentally

I have a tough time with computer security because it's generally inconvenient and results in a worse developer and user experience

The reality for most enterprise apps is that customers are using a small fraction of all available functionality and are paying for much more than the featureset they are using

So if a business can identify this featureset and give a team empowerment to build and maintain this featureset, it could work

Running a business is an optimization problem though - if you are spending resources on internal tooling, and people are more expensive than money, are you taking away from those resources being spent on things that drive revenue?

Plus, this falls apart when you start dealing with anything involving compliance. Part of paying for an app is you offload the risk of maintaining compliance to that app

Once you need to get legal/compliance/accounting involved, it's unlikely to be worth the cost anymore, so it depends on the data being processed by the SaaS

Don't overthink it. Use whatever bootstrapping tools your project framework comes with (rails app? use `rails new`)

> How do you keep stuff out of the context window that you don't want in it?

Don't overthink it. Just use one chat per general topic. New topic -> new chat. Save anything relevant to the project that the agent doesn't pick up in new chats in AGENTS.md

> How do you "layer" your work so it's much more about the context and integrity of the structure

Save project specific needs/requirements in AGENTS.md or docs/ or skills or whatever and tinker until it works

> Do you switch models

Nowadays just for code review. Recently gpt5.5 has felt very good for general dev

> What other tooling do you have alongside basic agents/environments?

Neovim for code browsing (don't write much code anymore but the code editor is still useful for reading code) and various plugins/tools i've built up over the years

Honestly, there's no blanket solution. The best engineers I've worked with all have different tools custom to their workflows

> know I'm hitting a ceiling. My workflow is naive and nonpro, a lot of tinkering and bashing my way through code generation, context drift, manual fixes, etc.

Hit a ceiling? Fix it. Typically it's

- do work

- notice something annoying about your workflow

- fix it systemically - research different solutions - sometimes it's writing a small script (agents are great for this), sometimes it's finding a new tool, sometimes it's overhauling your entire system, it just depends

- do work

repeat...

there's really no one stop solution for a perfect workflow

Alternatively, if you don't really care about the product, everyone is also customer support at a startup - you should be quickly be able to solve regressions that customers raise. I hope that at least you are talking to your customers and are very responsive to them at a startup.

Maybe when I hit peak earnings and no longer get a sizeable raise when hopping jobs every 3-4 years and the personal progression is no longer satisfying, I'd be interested in a union.

Notably, I have never been laid off and I have enough savings/investments to keep my family fed and housed for years if I am without work.

When I stop caring about career progression, about learning and growing, and just want to receive a paycheck for minimal effort until I can't be bothered showing up at work anymore, I'd be more than happy to join a union to ride it out. Until then, for purely selfish and individualistic reasons, I'd rather be solo.

Likely what would happen is by the time I want to join a union, it's no longer feasible for one reason or another, but I'll have enough savings by then (or we're all screwed anyway) to be fine.

Did they do this before AI? Does the company really, truly care about software quality or are they just trying to ship features?

Things like

- in depth code reviews

- encouraging sharing knowledge and helping others

- dedicating time to address technical debt

- giving engineers freedom to explore technologies and solutions

- following best practices for software dev

- hiring the right people

This is one of those things you can't enforce, but your leadership can encourage it by setting examples. If your company does not care about understanding the software by carving out time and explicitly encouraging it, then employees won't either.

Like Apple Intelligence? Which was quite crap

If code doesn't go this direction soon, I'd be surprised. PM builds a prototype with claude, or designer designs something in figma/canva - claude vibe codes 70% of the solution using your company's frameworks and design system, then hands it off to the developer who finishes it and productionizes it

If I was working at a startup or working on a personal project, I wouldn't read the code but instead build a tighter verification loop to ensure the code functions as expected. Much harder to do in an existing system that was built pre-AI

AI agents haven't yet figured out a way to do sales, marketing or customer support in a way that people want to pay them money.

Maybe that won't be necessary and instead the agent economy will be agents providing services for other agents.

Some things to consider:

Despite living here for 30 years, my parents don't feel they fit in. Their friends are Russian and the media they consume is in Russian. At the same time, they wouldn't fit in back in Russia either at this point. It's a weird state where you lack a strong cultural association. If you move, highly recommend immersing yourself in local culture, language, and activities.

We moved here because my dad had a good job at an international company (software dev). Our immigrant friends who are doing well are in a similar boat, or have entered higher paying fields like nursing. If you don't plan to climb the financial ladder via upskilling, or aren't in a transferrable career, your material life will be much better in your home country.

Overall, I don't think their quality of life changed much between the two countries. They are educated, white collar workers who would have a similar life anywhere they lived.

I use nvim all the time for code exploration & figuring out what i need to tell the AI. Invest in tools and packages that let you navigate your codebase quickly