I'm somewhere between 3 and 5 depending on the ticket. Fable pushed me over the edge on it but also I've a heavily customized pi that I use which let's me go hands off and not lose control. It's all about tightening those validation loops, watching where weird shit happens and trying to figure out if there was something unclear or ambiguous that let it happen.
I was an engineering manager that stepped back into IC so the idea is code going out I haven't personally inspected was already something I had to come to terms with. Many of the problems I was already solving as a manager translate well to LLMs and agents. Tight verification loops, outside review, easy to use test environment. If you put enough validation steps you'll be less likely to have the agents gaslighting you.
It's never been a better time to build things. If you were coding because you like writing pretty code you will probably disagree. I will admit I am very very bored most of the day which is honestly my biggest challenge right now.
I was an engineering manager that stepped back into IC so the idea is code going out I haven't personally inspected was already something I had to come to terms with. Many of the problems I was already solving as a manager translate well to LLMs and agents. Tight verification loops, outside review, easy to use test environment. If you put enough validation steps you'll be less likely to have the agents gaslighting you.
It's never been a better time to build things. If you were coding because you like writing pretty code you will probably disagree. I will admit I am very very bored most of the day which is honestly my biggest challenge right now.