How Are In-Office Dev Jobs Now? Coding Time Dropped to 30%
How Are In-Office Dev Jobs Now? Coding Time Dropped to 30%
If you have not been in an office dev role recently, the day-to-day has changed more than you might expect. The biggest shift: actual coding time has dropped to roughly 30% of the workday. The other 70% is reviewing AI-generated code, writing detailed specs, and coordinating between agents and humans.
What the Day Looks Like
A typical day for an in-office developer now:
- Morning: write specs and prompts for the day's tasks, review overnight agent output
- Mid-morning: code review - not of human-written code, but of AI-generated PRs
- Afternoon: hands-on coding for complex architectural decisions the AI cannot handle
- Late afternoon: more review, testing, and planning tomorrow's agent tasks
The role has shifted from "person who writes code" to "person who directs code writing and ensures quality." It is more like being an editor at a newspaper than a journalist.
Skills That Matter Now
The skills that get you hired and promoted have shifted:
- Spec writing - the better your prompts and specifications, the better the AI output
- Code review speed - you need to quickly identify whether AI-generated code is correct, secure, and maintainable
- Architecture - AI handles implementation but someone still needs to make structural decisions
- Communication - explaining technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders is more important than ever
The Controversial Part
Some developers love this shift - they get to focus on the interesting problems and delegate the tedious parts. Others hate it - they became developers because they enjoy writing code, and now most of their job is reviewing someone else's (the AI's) code.
Neither reaction is wrong. But if you are entering the field expecting to spend 8 hours a day coding, adjust your expectations.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.