AI coding can shift hidden work onto tech leads
A tech lead’s firsthand experience shows a growing gap between faster and slower code review. Developers increasingly open that appear to be mostly AI-made, but the code does not always match the ticket. Some changes ignore , include unnecessary AI-style comments, and add tests that do not check the important behavior.
Extra also appear even when nobody needed a more complex structure. The company strongly supports AI, so raising these problems can feel like being treated as out of date, even though the lead is 28. Developers can generate code, submit it, and move on, while the tech lead must review it, leave many comments, review AI-made fixes again, and repeat when the fixes are still wrong.
Review time has roughly tripled over the past year, but the lead is still responsible for what reaches production. The saved time is visible for developers, while the extra review and cleanup cost carried by tech leads and senior engineers is not being counted.
Key points
- AI-made code can make faster but harder to review.
- Code may fail to match the ticket or may skip .
- Tests are not useful if they do not check the behavior that matters.
- Unneeded can make a codebase harder to understand.
- AI should include review time and rework time, not only coding speed.