> But if you haven’t used specifically Opus 4.5/4.6 with specifically Claude Code for at least an hour, then you’re in for a real shock. Because all your complaining about AI not being useful for real-world tasks is obsolete. AI coding hit an event horizon on November 24th, 2025. It’s the real deal.
Yeah, it is over for several roles, especially frontend web development given Opus 4.6 is able to one shot your React frontend from a Figma design 90% of the time.
Why would I want to hire 10 senior frontend developers on a $200K asking price salary at this point when one AI can replace 9 of them (yes it can) and require one single junior-level engineer at a significant lower price?
This idea is very tempting for many companies to continue slashing headcount with less employees to find 'cost savings' by using AI to do more with less.
I think Opus 4.5 & 4.6 are an impressive step up in capabilities but I'm really skeptical that this model is replacing the output of 9/10 skilled front end engineers as a project grows beyond the early stages.
> Yeah, it is over for several roles, especially frontend web development
Only if the front end was super simple in the first place, IMO. And also only for the v1, which is still useful, whereas for ongoing development I think AI leads people down a path of tools that cost more to maintain and build on.
It may be that AI leads to framework and architecture choices best suited to AI, with great results up front, and then all the same challenges and costs of quick and dirty development by a human. Except 10x faster so, by the time anyone in management realizes the mess they’re in, and the cost/benefit ratio tilts negative even in the short run as opposed to the obvious to engineers long term, there’s going to be so much more code in that bad style that it’s 10x more expensive for expert humans to fix it.
Yeah, it is over for several roles, especially frontend web development given Opus 4.6 is able to one shot your React frontend from a Figma design 90% of the time.
Why would I want to hire 10 senior frontend developers on a $200K asking price salary at this point when one AI can replace 9 of them (yes it can) and require one single junior-level engineer at a significant lower price?
This idea is very tempting for many companies to continue slashing headcount with less employees to find 'cost savings' by using AI to do more with less.