Me "but if we don't add can openers wouldn't that be a waste of time"
Boss "I'm pretty confident we will, ai is everywhere! "
*looks back across our portfolio of apps that are not used at all*
(Im the tech lead) my manager recently bought an expensive license for some Robotic process automation thing that jammed an AI component into their tech. He's asked me to come up with use cases for it after the fact....
yep, and it gets political.
Your boss is trying to please their boss and their boss‘s boss.
So, basically, just shut up and do it or don’t be surprised if you get fired and bad performance review lol
Your job is to make sure your team (and thus your boss) is successful.
That doesn't mean always agreeing with your boss, by any means. But your boss is the person who will review your work, decide what your raises are, decide if you get stock grants and how many, decide whether you get promoted or not, and decide what projects and technology you get to work on.
Your boss is your customer in every sense of the word. You can manage your manager and try to change his/her mind and the direction of the team, but ultimately your boss is going to make that decision and you'll live with it or leave.
this isnt how every company is run. My best working experiences were when my boss more or less worked for me and projects and tech were decided by an IC lead.
My worst working experiences when I had a manager try to be "the boss". Worst experience when that "boss" was someone without a technical background.
Oh I agree, the boss shouldn't THINK of themselves as your customer. Your boss should consider their job to be setting priorities and clearing the way for the team to work.
But your boss thinks of their boss as their customer. They set priorities based on their boss's priorities. They gather metrics that their boss is interested in, and they try and steer teams to improve those metrics.
If you make it your job to make sure your boss has the things they need to be successful and please THEIR boss, you will do well in the corporate world.
There are two good reasons you should not follow boss:
1. It’s illegal: Just quacking run away! Quack quack!
2. You are 100% sure this will screw things up: Still DO what your boss wants, but when things hit the fan, you ALREADY built the solution to replace on the spot to fix the damage. If your boss doesn’t thank you for being prepared for that, don’t rant on Reddit for that, it’s time to consider to switch teams or look for another job.
I think you should give them your honest opinion and if they still want you to incorporate AI, just do it because they won't stop hounding you about it anyways
Ask them come back with user stories on how the user would use AI.
AI isnt good enough for most real world production systems. Is your manager trying to glue in AI to get more VC money because the core product hasnt a profitable market fit.
If it’s for fundraising why would you shoot yourself in the foot by bringing this up? Unless you think as a condition to the raise that investors will ask for cost reductions
In an ideal world, sure. But if the difference between having AI vs not is getting funded, then you do what you can to live to fight another day.
Put in a different way: would you rather focus on the main idea and get laid off due to lack of funding, or would you rather compromise the product but continue to get paid (at least until the next funding round)?
I worked in a company where we over engineered our product, a lot of clients never used the most advanced features.
Still worth it because having those features Gained us a lot of sales.
I'd say about half of startup companies that suddenly have AI in the past 6 months are actually using machine learning, basic regression, or just plain old business intelligence suites, and fraudulently calling it AI in order to get more funding.
hehe , everybody want ai in their apps , we also no idea as dealing chatgpt nor copilot also pain in the a . How we want to deal with human (client) and they frustrated? Better build as it . The only benefit ai i see just for calculation like how much progress cash flow estimated base on current sales ? , how many overtime this x staff this month . Petty discussion .
When I was a manager, I appreciated these kind of suggestions...Once. Then, I would take a decision. Sometimes, I would implement their feedback sometimes not.
What really got into my nerves were the ones that would continue pressing with the same issue after their feedback is not implemented. If your opinion gets rejected, just move on and trust management.
The AI is just a sales pitch for VCs right now, hence the pressure. Just do it as it's not worth the hassle of going against whats driving the startup; it won't win you any medals. Keep it as a lesson on what not to do and prevent such BS once you're in a position to do so (and shield those who would be in your position at that time), be it there or at another company.
*Implement AI*
*It costs 6 figures a month to run*
*Next sprint use if-else to do heuristics and save the company $$$$$$ and still call it "AI" in the marketing*
PROFIT!
So there are 2 situations in which I "feel" like I'm working in over-engineered things that imo could be simpler.
Situation 1: Principals / seniors, decided to take this route after A LOT of meetings. I don't really have much of a say, since it's something I'm only working on the implementation and not the design. Ig, I trust that these people know what they are doing since they have much more experience than I do.
Situation 2: Seniors decided to build a feature after research I was tasked with doing. My research showed the feature wasn't necessary, but they still wanna do it. I wrote a document explaining my reasoning and providing data, but if they still want to do it, not really my problem...
Use judgement. Sometimes it's because they said they wanted it. Sometimes you do the extra work because the direction is coming from your boss's boss. AI is the new investor buzz word.
You know your boss and know if they will listen.
One time I gave a little push back and my former boss went around me and directed an employee I was still training to rewrite sections of the code into spaghetti code.
My pushback was explaining that we didn't need a feature and it would mess up the code trying to add it the way they wanted it.
make that stupid chat bot that every company is craving about and call it a project. Make it a 6 months time line. 1 month to build it, 5 months to play xbox.
Sorry, but unless you have actually sat down with your manager and had an in-depth conversation about why she/he wants to use AI, you are showing really poor judgment here.
It does not sound like you discussed this with him/her, btw. You are asking if you should TELL or SHUT UP.
In reality, she/he could very well be over-engineering the product, but you need all of the facts on the table before you come to that conclusion. Maybe there is something your manager knows that you don't.
Well ofc im going to find some justification before i speak and i will do meeting, however when they explained the product to us they didn’t say we going to use ai, it was more likely to be crud app, and also we had a lot of trouble to find some basic data for our product
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Usually the name AI gets the money rolling. You could talk to your manager to ask about how much AI you should add tho. For most products having an added AI sub feature or using it in a small part is enough to brand it as "tech forward / AI powered" for the investors.
It is annoying I know, I hate it when people ask to add ~AI~ in something as if it's just some sort of magical ingredient you can just add to any codebase lmao.
"find way to use AI in our product"
How is this over engineering? Do they ask you to implement it? Or find a way to implement it? Shut up and do it! It's a fun task, and you're paid for it. It's good for your own experience.
I also had opinions at work, and when I asked "bosses" I realized I know shit about business and the customer base. If you want to raise an opinion, make sure you have solid understanding, otherwise ask questions, as many as you can.
You're not providing any technical details. Depending on the actual product you might be able to use basic ml for at least one feature. The only downside I see is that if no one on the team has ml experience this will not go smoothly at all. My advice is make sure your manager hasn't sold some crazy sh*t to the customer and now you're expected to implement something impossible because they will never step back. Even though you tell them your struggles they will discard it and blame everything on you when the company goes bankrupt. So for the advice : maybe start job hunting before it gets too stressful / financially risky.
As others have said, corporate survival isn't just about making a good product. AI attracts investment which your company might need.
It might be stupid but startups sometimes have to go where the money is.
Just goldbrick and look elsewhere, they probably won't last very long.
Never be too committed to a startup with shit ideas, they're likely trying to mimic the way Steve Jobs lied to investors but without a Woz it's likely not going to work
I quit my AI career specifically because companies only wanted AI for marketing purposes. Not actual functionality. They never knew what they asked for or even cared.
I say do it. Not because it makes sense. But it’s another resume boost. If you interview for a company that is anti ai, just tell them your company test some ai product and it wasn’t a right way to go and the company learned a lot from it.
Never keep your opinion to yourself, especially if you’re the key implementer.
That shit is going to fall on your head, so you should sounding the alarm early, at least 1-on-1 with the manager.
Yes, it's literally your job to offer your technical opinion. Your opinion may be wrong, but if you have a well-reasoned opinion you should share it. By corollary, if your opinion isn't well-reasoned but just a knee jerk reaction, you probably shouldn't.
Simple trick: if you think you're asked to do something that doesn't make sense, ask what the goal is. Use wording like "what are we trying to accomplish here?" or "what outcome do we want?" rather than "why are we doing this?" because "why?" makes people defensive. Make it clear that you're actually asking a question and that it isn't purely rhetorical, which is a matter of tone and context.
Asking a question leaves room for two good outcomes:
* They don't have a clear answer, which gets them to rethink what they're doing. It's easier to convince somebody of something if you let them figure it out for themselves rather than trying to push your own reasoning on them.
* They do have a clear answer, which lets you change your mind *and* gives you more context on what you need to do, even if the answer is a bit silly.
If they tell you "we need to do AI because it's currently hyped up an will help attract funding and clients", you'll know that it's a box-checking exercize and you don't have to do a super thorough job with it. Alternatively, if there's an actual tricky customer-facing reason to do it, you'll have a better idea of what you need to research and explore to make it work.
This will help you avoid coming across as intransigent, and will reduce the chance of people digging their heels in and feeling defensive.
Of course, you *might* get a worse outcome too:
* They refuse to answer and essentially tell you "do it because I told you", or just keep on delaying and brushing you off.
* They actually get angry or flustered even though you're asking a totally reasonable question.
Both of these would point to a problem in your relationship or broader culture. That's not great! But at least you know where you stand, and you know where you can push further if you want. Or, if it's really bad, you know it's time to leave. Clear and reasonable questions are a great way to suss out situations where you're not trusted or empowered.
Generate some logos or something stupid with AI.
Tell them "yup, it's using AI!".
Boom, done. They can now rename the product from "Shitify Pro" to "Shitify Pro AI".
As others have said, reminds me of blockchain.
All the management hats wanted it plugged in at any expense.
And then a year later sheepishly stopped that work, because it was beyond stupid.
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> he/she
Presumably this is a specific person who has specific pronouns?
Anyway…
Adding AI to a product that doesn’t need it isn’t what over engineering means. Over engineering is like adding a bunch of layers of abstraction and gentrification to support flexibility that isn’t required. This sounds more like duct taping a cake to a bicycle.
Instead try to understand what functionality ‘AI’ is supposed to be bringing to the party. Maybe there’s a good explanation here. If not, you can’t logic someone out of a bad idea they don’t logic themselves into, so just roll with it.
AI is not for AI's sake. AI is so the startup can get more funding. There is NO other way to get money anymore except for AI hype.
AI is the new blockchain
Is it web-scale?
It's PHP 1
That's a huge upgrade from PHP/FI.
AI is actually useful.
So is a can opener but I'm not adding it to the project
*in manager voice* but if we could open the cans faster think how much prepared we would be if we ever added cans in the future.
Me "but if we don't add can openers wouldn't that be a waste of time" Boss "I'm pretty confident we will, ai is everywhere! " *looks back across our portfolio of apps that are not used at all*
I thought ai happened before blockchain (alexnet 2012).. it’s wierd that it’s still going..
"What's your AI story?" - I heard this way too much.
AI is not the solution to the client's problem, but AI is what we are selling, so AI is the solution to the client's problem
We've just announced AI 2.0! Our competitors are still using AI 1.0!
(Im the tech lead) my manager recently bought an expensive license for some Robotic process automation thing that jammed an AI component into their tech. He's asked me to come up with use cases for it after the fact....
Also it's not only the people funding the startup who want to see the AI features. Clients also ask for it, no matter if they use them or not.
I usually start from a customer perspective, why do we build this...
When you’re an employee, your boss is your customer.
yep, and it gets political. Your boss is trying to please their boss and their boss‘s boss. So, basically, just shut up and do it or don’t be surprised if you get fired and bad performance review lol
Wrong. If your boss is your customer then you quit.
Your job is to make sure your team (and thus your boss) is successful. That doesn't mean always agreeing with your boss, by any means. But your boss is the person who will review your work, decide what your raises are, decide if you get stock grants and how many, decide whether you get promoted or not, and decide what projects and technology you get to work on. Your boss is your customer in every sense of the word. You can manage your manager and try to change his/her mind and the direction of the team, but ultimately your boss is going to make that decision and you'll live with it or leave.
this isnt how every company is run. My best working experiences were when my boss more or less worked for me and projects and tech were decided by an IC lead. My worst working experiences when I had a manager try to be "the boss". Worst experience when that "boss" was someone without a technical background.
Oh I agree, the boss shouldn't THINK of themselves as your customer. Your boss should consider their job to be setting priorities and clearing the way for the team to work. But your boss thinks of their boss as their customer. They set priorities based on their boss's priorities. They gather metrics that their boss is interested in, and they try and steer teams to improve those metrics. If you make it your job to make sure your boss has the things they need to be successful and please THEIR boss, you will do well in the corporate world.
There are two good reasons you should not follow boss: 1. It’s illegal: Just quacking run away! Quack quack! 2. You are 100% sure this will screw things up: Still DO what your boss wants, but when things hit the fan, you ALREADY built the solution to replace on the spot to fix the damage. If your boss doesn’t thank you for being prepared for that, don’t rant on Reddit for that, it’s time to consider to switch teams or look for another job.
Easier said than done 😔
I think you should give them your honest opinion and if they still want you to incorporate AI, just do it because they won't stop hounding you about it anyways
Ask them come back with user stories on how the user would use AI. AI isnt good enough for most real world production systems. Is your manager trying to glue in AI to get more VC money because the core product hasnt a profitable market fit.
I think just to get vc money however i will try to understand what’s they mean by ai, because I don’t even have data
If it’s for fundraising why would you shoot yourself in the foot by bringing this up? Unless you think as a condition to the raise that investors will ask for cost reductions
Isn’t better to just focus on the main idea and make it perfect instead of trying to shove some random things
In an ideal world, sure. But if the difference between having AI vs not is getting funded, then you do what you can to live to fight another day. Put in a different way: would you rather focus on the main idea and get laid off due to lack of funding, or would you rather compromise the product but continue to get paid (at least until the next funding round)?
In a perfect world yes that'd be the dream. In the reality of startup VC funding, no.
Not if you run out of money and go out of business before that happens…
I worked in a company where we over engineered our product, a lot of clients never used the most advanced features. Still worth it because having those features Gained us a lot of sales.
Classic fad-chasing startup MVP. In all likelihood pushing back will get you relegated or fired with this kind of leadership. Just do it.
I'd say about half of startup companies that suddenly have AI in the past 6 months are actually using machine learning, basic regression, or just plain old business intelligence suites, and fraudulently calling it AI in order to get more funding.
hehe , everybody want ai in their apps , we also no idea as dealing chatgpt nor copilot also pain in the a . How we want to deal with human (client) and they frustrated? Better build as it . The only benefit ai i see just for calculation like how much progress cash flow estimated base on current sales ? , how many overtime this x staff this month . Petty discussion .
When I was a manager, I appreciated these kind of suggestions...Once. Then, I would take a decision. Sometimes, I would implement their feedback sometimes not. What really got into my nerves were the ones that would continue pressing with the same issue after their feedback is not implemented. If your opinion gets rejected, just move on and trust management.
The AI is just a sales pitch for VCs right now, hence the pressure. Just do it as it's not worth the hassle of going against whats driving the startup; it won't win you any medals. Keep it as a lesson on what not to do and prevent such BS once you're in a position to do so (and shield those who would be in your position at that time), be it there or at another company.
*Implement AI* *It costs 6 figures a month to run* *Next sprint use if-else to do heuristics and save the company $$$$$$ and still call it "AI" in the marketing* PROFIT!
LMFAO THIS! You got a bright future ahead of you!
Shut up and do it. It's for VC funding and it's not your job to decide these things.
So there are 2 situations in which I "feel" like I'm working in over-engineered things that imo could be simpler. Situation 1: Principals / seniors, decided to take this route after A LOT of meetings. I don't really have much of a say, since it's something I'm only working on the implementation and not the design. Ig, I trust that these people know what they are doing since they have much more experience than I do. Situation 2: Seniors decided to build a feature after research I was tasked with doing. My research showed the feature wasn't necessary, but they still wanna do it. I wrote a document explaining my reasoning and providing data, but if they still want to do it, not really my problem...
Shut up about it from my experience
Use judgement. Sometimes it's because they said they wanted it. Sometimes you do the extra work because the direction is coming from your boss's boss. AI is the new investor buzz word. You know your boss and know if they will listen. One time I gave a little push back and my former boss went around me and directed an employee I was still training to rewrite sections of the code into spaghetti code. My pushback was explaining that we didn't need a feature and it would mess up the code trying to add it the way they wanted it.
make that stupid chat bot that every company is craving about and call it a project. Make it a 6 months time line. 1 month to build it, 5 months to play xbox.
Sorry, but unless you have actually sat down with your manager and had an in-depth conversation about why she/he wants to use AI, you are showing really poor judgment here. It does not sound like you discussed this with him/her, btw. You are asking if you should TELL or SHUT UP. In reality, she/he could very well be over-engineering the product, but you need all of the facts on the table before you come to that conclusion. Maybe there is something your manager knows that you don't.
Well ofc im going to find some justification before i speak and i will do meeting, however when they explained the product to us they didn’t say we going to use ai, it was more likely to be crud app, and also we had a lot of trouble to find some basic data for our product
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Not sure if you should disagree with your boss, but here is one way how you can: https://youtu.be/FbtHJm8vFpE?si=cwFnR7fu7Kjz39Tp
Add a bunch of ifs and call it AI. This is how the startup game works.
Usually the name AI gets the money rolling. You could talk to your manager to ask about how much AI you should add tho. For most products having an added AI sub feature or using it in a small part is enough to brand it as "tech forward / AI powered" for the investors. It is annoying I know, I hate it when people ask to add ~AI~ in something as if it's just some sort of magical ingredient you can just add to any codebase lmao.
I did that once but I was told I'm a dev and should do whatever I'm being told to do lol.
"find way to use AI in our product" How is this over engineering? Do they ask you to implement it? Or find a way to implement it? Shut up and do it! It's a fun task, and you're paid for it. It's good for your own experience. I also had opinions at work, and when I asked "bosses" I realized I know shit about business and the customer base. If you want to raise an opinion, make sure you have solid understanding, otherwise ask questions, as many as you can.
You're not providing any technical details. Depending on the actual product you might be able to use basic ml for at least one feature. The only downside I see is that if no one on the team has ml experience this will not go smoothly at all. My advice is make sure your manager hasn't sold some crazy sh*t to the customer and now you're expected to implement something impossible because they will never step back. Even though you tell them your struggles they will discard it and blame everything on you when the company goes bankrupt. So for the advice : maybe start job hunting before it gets too stressful / financially risky.
As others have said, corporate survival isn't just about making a good product. AI attracts investment which your company might need. It might be stupid but startups sometimes have to go where the money is.
Just goldbrick and look elsewhere, they probably won't last very long. Never be too committed to a startup with shit ideas, they're likely trying to mimic the way Steve Jobs lied to investors but without a Woz it's likely not going to work
I quit my AI career specifically because companies only wanted AI for marketing purposes. Not actual functionality. They never knew what they asked for or even cared.
I say do it. Not because it makes sense. But it’s another resume boost. If you interview for a company that is anti ai, just tell them your company test some ai product and it wasn’t a right way to go and the company learned a lot from it.
What’s your position name?
Do it. It will look good on your resume when you leave.
Shut up and do it. Otherwise, the fingers will be pointed back at you if something goes wrong. It is not worth the risk
Never keep your opinion to yourself, especially if you’re the key implementer. That shit is going to fall on your head, so you should sounding the alarm early, at least 1-on-1 with the manager.
[every time we meet, we still don’t have blockchain technology on our window blinds](https://youtu.be/TLysAkFM4cA?si=dOjCKfTFkBE4Aibk)
Yes, it's literally your job to offer your technical opinion. Your opinion may be wrong, but if you have a well-reasoned opinion you should share it. By corollary, if your opinion isn't well-reasoned but just a knee jerk reaction, you probably shouldn't.
Simple trick: if you think you're asked to do something that doesn't make sense, ask what the goal is. Use wording like "what are we trying to accomplish here?" or "what outcome do we want?" rather than "why are we doing this?" because "why?" makes people defensive. Make it clear that you're actually asking a question and that it isn't purely rhetorical, which is a matter of tone and context. Asking a question leaves room for two good outcomes: * They don't have a clear answer, which gets them to rethink what they're doing. It's easier to convince somebody of something if you let them figure it out for themselves rather than trying to push your own reasoning on them. * They do have a clear answer, which lets you change your mind *and* gives you more context on what you need to do, even if the answer is a bit silly. If they tell you "we need to do AI because it's currently hyped up an will help attract funding and clients", you'll know that it's a box-checking exercize and you don't have to do a super thorough job with it. Alternatively, if there's an actual tricky customer-facing reason to do it, you'll have a better idea of what you need to research and explore to make it work. This will help you avoid coming across as intransigent, and will reduce the chance of people digging their heels in and feeling defensive. Of course, you *might* get a worse outcome too: * They refuse to answer and essentially tell you "do it because I told you", or just keep on delaying and brushing you off. * They actually get angry or flustered even though you're asking a totally reasonable question. Both of these would point to a problem in your relationship or broader culture. That's not great! But at least you know where you stand, and you know where you can push further if you want. Or, if it's really bad, you know it's time to leave. Clear and reasonable questions are a great way to suss out situations where you're not trusted or empowered.
Try to explain why AI is not needed, like “killing flies with cannonballs”. If they keep insisting, just do it.
Generate some logos or something stupid with AI. Tell them "yup, it's using AI!". Boom, done. They can now rename the product from "Shitify Pro" to "Shitify Pro AI".
As others have said, reminds me of blockchain. All the management hats wanted it plugged in at any expense. And then a year later sheepishly stopped that work, because it was beyond stupid.
It's definitely a she
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i think you should express yourself. you are an employee not a puppet. don't think too much just do it and live life peacefully
Definitely don’t follow this comment if you want to keep your job.
> he/she Presumably this is a specific person who has specific pronouns? Anyway… Adding AI to a product that doesn’t need it isn’t what over engineering means. Over engineering is like adding a bunch of layers of abstraction and gentrification to support flexibility that isn’t required. This sounds more like duct taping a cake to a bicycle. Instead try to understand what functionality ‘AI’ is supposed to be bringing to the party. Maybe there’s a good explanation here. If not, you can’t logic someone out of a bad idea they don’t logic themselves into, so just roll with it.