As I get older, I find that time is the most valuable commodity I have. It’s the one thing that I need more of, but I can’t get it. Even if I find more efficient ways of doing things, it seems there’s an endless list of things at work and on the ranch that need to be done.
It seems to be the same for most of my friends in other jobs, whether in medicine, law, or any other position; they’re often overloaded with more work than they can get done in a week. Arguably, it’s not all important work, as sometimes we might tackle a task, only to have our boss throw the work away or delay the project. That’s annoying, but I also understand priorities change.
Mostly, I understand people ask for a lot of things they don’t really need, but because it’s easy to ask. Over time, they may forget about their request or realize they don’t need it anymore. So I tend to do the work I’m asked and then not worry about if it’s really needed.
However, that’s not what this piece is about. Let’s say that you have a useful AI Assistant that can truly produce better code, faster than you can. You trust the coding agent (under your guidance), and it saves you time. Let’s say that this agent reduces your coding load by 30%. Forget the issues with the agent stealing your joy.
A number of studies show that the average developer only codes around 2-3 hours a day. Some might say 4, but that’s just 50% of your workday (I hope). If you save 30% of that time, then you’re saving 1:20 a day, 6:40 a week. That’s a nice chunk of change, but what will you do with the time? Or maybe more importantly, what will your boss expect you to do?
A lot of management might see 30% and expect you to get 30% more coding done (of 40 hours), asking for 12 hours more of work. I see that a lot as management somehow things that developers work 8 hours a day and should get 8 hours worth of code written. When that doesn’t happen, and it never does, they often schedule more meetings to check on your progress. Hence to 2-3 hours worth of actual work.
The smarter group of managers might think that you could get 5 hours more work done (30% of 3/day), and the really smart group of managers might use that time to improve the coding skills of the staff. That’s more than a 10% allocation of time and if focused, could help developers write more efficient code (especially SQL), improve their secure coding knowledge, and perhaps even tackle some technical debt with refactoring of existing problem areas. Maybe you could learn to better judge AI-produced code.
I know that many people are skeptical of AI assistance in coding. I think it’s a tricky thing, but even if the AI doesn’t produce production code, but allows me to conduct a lot of quick experiments that can prove out a hypothesis, I think it can help developers become more productive.
If they learn to use it as a tool and management doesn’t expect it will turn every developer into a 10x (or even 2x) engineer.
If you had more time, what would you do in your work day?
Steve Jones
Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.
Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.
Voice of the DBA 
“A number of studies show that the average developer only codes around 2-3 hours a day. Some might say 4, but that’s just 50% of your workday (I hope).”And this is good. If one was coding 90% of the day with the 1-% being for bath room breaks and lunch and that’s it, that would be bad. It means the person is banging away without ever stopping to think. While some maybe can do that successfully on average most can not. I would HOPE at least half as much time is spent to thinking about what it is your doing or going to do as well as doing it.
LikeLike
“A number of studies show that the average developer only codes around 2-3 hours a day. Some might say 4, but that’s just 50% of your workday (I hope).”And this is good. If one was coding 90% of the day with the 1-% being for bath room breaks and lunch and that’s it, that would be bad. It means the person is banging away without ever stopping to think. While some maybe can do that successfully on average most can not. I would HOPE at least half as much time is spent to thinking about what it is your doing or going to do as well as doing it.
LikeLike
That’s supposed to be 90% and 10% not 90% and 1-%
LikeLike
I would hope there is some good thinking time, but I don’t know. Most software is of a higher quality than in the past, but I think there’s better stability with frameworks and testing. Not sure the software always works well or does what is needed, especially inside orgs. I don’t know if AI helps there, though it can.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m “hoping” cooler/wiser heads will prevail and all of tech doesn’t try to replace everyone it can with AI.
Even if AI dominated every single field it can work in replacing all human employees (save for the executives naturally), it still could never replace the trades jobs, plumbing, electrical, and so on at least not until those Tesla bots are perfected and being thru a few generation upgrades. The problem still is that it’s foolish to try and get AI to do everything possible because by replacing humans with it those humans have to find jobs AI can’t do and that will not take long to fill up leaving a massive % of the population employed. Companies will inadvertently destroy their own customer base by driving so many out of work.
Let’s imagine the Tesla bots drive out all the humans from the physical jobs so 90%+ are unemployed. Who are these companies going to sell the products and services to? The system is so complex that it would take a LONG time before literally all non executive level jobs in every single field could be done by a robot/AI but the road to get there will be painful if wiser heads don’t prevail. These things need to be such that they help humans do more/better; not replace them.
LikeLike