2026-02-12T09:51:01.299Z
- Steve Yegge said his fellow software engineers need to get better at setting boundaries.
- Otherwise, Amazon and Google veterans say they will be consumed by AI’s overwhelming victory.
- Yegge said companies also need to understand that there are limits to how much they can maximize the coding atmosphere.
One veteran said his fellow software engineers need to learn “how to say ‘no’ really fast” or risk being crushed by AI.
Steve Jaegge, who worked with Jeff Bezos at Amazon early on before spending 12 years at Google, said AI is set up to really wear people down.
“AI has a vampire effect, where you get excited, work hard, and capture tons of value,” he recently told the newsletter/podcast “The Pragmatic Engineer.”
Yegge said that while agent AI may make engineers more productive than ever before, companies also need to understand that pushing the limits will only drain the workforce.
“I seriously think that founders, company leaders, engineering leaders at all levels, all the way down to line managers, need to recognize this and realize that they might only get three hours of productive time from someone who is vibecoding at top speed,” he said. “So, do you want them to work three hours a day? The answer is yes. Otherwise, the company will go out of business.”
Engineers are starting to express concerns about “AI fatigue.” Business Insider recently interviewed Siddhant Khare, who develops AI tools, and wrote an essay about how AI has accelerated the pace of his work and left him exhausted.
Yegge said his fellow engineers need to set boundaries when it comes to vibecoding.
“People have to learn the art of pushing back,” he says.
Until then, Jaegge said he and his fellow engineers were taking naps and were becoming increasingly grumpy.
“I noticed that I was napping during the day, and when I was talking to friends at startups, I realized that they were also napping during the day,” he said. “We’re starting to get tired and grumpy.”
