How to enforce engineers to understand the code they are shipping

Question

Everyone is using AI for everything now. Company is pushing for AI-first and encourages the adoption of AI in every part of our work.AI for planning, AI for RFC, AI for writing code, AI for creating PRs. Sure we can have harnesses and tests to ensure nothing breaks. But how do we enforce engineers to have a deep understanding of the code that they are shipping?Our team has the usual suggestions: write a plan first, write test cases first, etc. But in this age, how do you verify that the engineer did not simply delegate these tasks to an LLM first?Also genuinely worried about junior engineers' growth if this is the future.

throwaw12 · Accepted Answer

> Company is pushing for AI-first> But how do we enforce engineers to have a deep understanding of the code that they are shipping?By not pushing AI-first mindset. When you start tracking token usage metrics, people will optimize for that metric.If you don't push them, and tell to use AI as a tool, they will optimize for understanding the code

damnitbuilds · Answer

We also have the problem that a (junior) engineer may not have the skills to understand the AI code.
When you writes code yourself, you only use concepts you have come across previously. But if you generate an AI solution, it may well use concepts one has not previously come across.
What do we expect a junior engineer to do then, if they do not have time to learn the concepts used ? Do we really think they will reject the AI code and implement their own, more familiar, solution ?

late_night_fix · Answer

Trying to enforce "deep understanding" is optimizing wrong layer. Focus on: . Fast rollback . Good observability . Small PRs Understanding become emergent, not enforced.