Show HN: App that simulates a software engineer's daily job
40 comments
·February 8, 2025molf
Is it satire because many of the buttons and links don't work so you can't actually finish anything?
If it’s serious, I doubt it provides much real value. Developer experience is built on accomplishing actual tasks, not the surrounding administration and ceremony. Aspiring devs should probably work on personal/toy projects or open source.
That said, it looks great—well done!
eterm
The outstanding task of "Implement OAuth" being overdue nearly a year hits too close to home.
zwnow
Whats good about OAuth if you dont require Authorization though? Most apps I know of mostly only need Authentication. Never implemented it myself so I really want to know
eterm
Often when people ask for Oauth they really mean OAuth2/OIDC, and what they really want is managed authentication, with further authorisation being managed at the application level rather than through oauth.
The advantages are there:
1. Reducing sign-up friction. Despite how much this crowd dislike such things, it's much easier for most people to hit "Use google login" or "use facebook login" than create a new account. One less password to remember ( or one less place to store the same password you use everywhere ) for people without password managers.
2. People trust "Google" or "Facebook" more than they trust random service they're just checking out. Having that "sign in with google" extends that trust to your service.
3. If you ever do need Authorization, it's much easier retro-fitting that if you already have OAUTH than trying to retro-actively fit it all to get that authorization.
4. Letting someone else take care of user account cancellation. Businesses hate it when there's no OAUTH, because they don't want to have to track down and change / cancel accounts when someone leaves their organization. They want to suspend/remove them from their Azure AD / Octa / etc and that user instantly becomes persona-non-grata across all services. They might also want to have different groups at their end, so they're still the same identity, but lost authorisation to log into <Service> now they moved from an ops role into development, for instance. They're still the same identity and same authenication in this case, but should no longer be authorised for your service.
kvdveer
Maybe I'm zooming in too much on semantics here, but I have a hard time imagining an application that needs authn, but not authz. Even editing your own preferences requires authz, as other people shouldn't be able to do that.
antonvs
In any company of any non-trivial size, and even many smaller ones, authorization is a big deal that tends to permeate all the systems. For example you don’t want most staff to be able to log into the payroll system and change salaries. But they can log in and look at their own records. That behavior requires authorization either way.
If you then add outside people or companies to that, it becomes even more complex. Most companies aren’t in the business of implementing their own distributed auth system, and wouldn’t be able to do a good job if they tried. So they buy an implementation of a standard system like Oauth.
null
Scarblac
It's the other way around, if you don't need authorisation, why would you need authentication?
KomoD
> That said, it looks great—well done!
All they did was generate it with https://lovable.dev
That's why basically nothing works.
notpushkin
Oh wow. So you can put in a prompt, get a mockup of an app and get to the front page of HN with that now?
edgineer
The idea-execution value gap is shrinking.
mycall
I didn't see 100 emails or supervisor interruptions buttons.
ZaoLahma
Love it.
Also needs to simulate getting responsibility without authority, with weekly meetings to follow up on your progress.
pinoy420
Great feedback. Others can learn from you
bschwindHN
I was hoping for satire but this seems to be earnest attempt at something.
From a "dashboard" point of view it's not bad for giving an overview of the state of things on a team project, but at the same time the main question in my head is: "Why not just work on an open source project?". That would give you experience, _and_ (hopefully) contribute to the improvement of something.
I question the experience of anyone interacting solely with AI to learn what it's like to work with others on a project.
Raed667
> earnest attempt at something
that's what makes it even funnier
simonbarker87
Nice idea but it lacks context and that is the most important part of being a software engineer. We write code to solve problems for a user/business/etc.
This is something that a company called Wilco were trying to solve. I thought they went under a year or so back but a quick google implies they are still around.
fsloth
As a developer that looks horrible but if I was running a bodyshop I would probably love this.
Just plug-in people to whatever codebase.
If I was VC I would probably immediately fund this.
”The human adapter”. As technology develops AI agents could be plugged in to replace human workers for suitable tasks.
Go seek funding now :)
notpushkin
Looks sleek but I don’t get the premise. Why not let people just work on a real (open-source) project instead?
lmm
The way open-source projects tend to run is quite different from the typical corporate dev experience.
ZaoLahma
Was thinking the exact same thing - build real world real experience, and learn how to deal with other humans, perhaps with different goals than yours, at the same time.
Tech and the stuff around it is just one small dimension of the software engineering space.
firtoz
"Next Step" after Start Development Server doesn't work
Unsure what to do in Git workflow practice page, maybe some code didn't work for me? i can press "practice" or "visualisation" toggle but nothing happens
The AI mentor keeps saying "I understand you're interested in learning about that. Let me help you break it down and suggest some resources."
The whole thing feels like an incomplete placeholder? From your message, that's probably the intention to share it earlier, but people may expect more of it to be working...
I kinda get the idea though, could potentially lead somewhere, for example an actual onboarding step for a new role, or preparing for an entry level role before you start interviewing. The steps does give a hint to my experience as a SWE, at least.
nikanj
Where's the coworker who interrupts your flow every 10 minutes?
davethedevguy
Presumably this would be Jane, who felt the need to comment on the OAuth ticket:
> Make sure to follow the security best practices
Thanks Jane! Appreciate the input, don't you have your own work to do?
lencastre
This is lo-key brilliant. It could be a meta Stanley Parable both in its soul crushing despair and pointless meaningless existence.
Keep up the great work!!
Terretta
If I squint, I see a real product: living onboarding.
We've taken steps towards organizing our company dev knowledge by diataxis.fr (see the excellent Tailscale docs for a fleshed out example, whether purposeful or not), but the very first page of this gives the best docs overlay I've seen for one's first days at a new firm.
We'll likely reframe our onboarding around these layouts, where the detail is drawn from current work in the new hire's area, wrapped with references into docs, from how to set up one's dev env to how to write up a PR or pair on code review.
appleorchard46
I see a lot of negativity in the comments but I think there is potentially some value in this, if I'm understanding it correctly. Some people (me) find the procedural parts of a job that you cannot prepare for in advance the most overwhelming aspect - moreso than any actual programming.
That being said, there isn't enough here to get any real idea of what it offers. Getting feedback early is good but this is too early.
hnthrow90348765
>const login = async (email, password) => { // Implementation }
For real, are you guys are redoing the auth implementation for every project?
null
I built an app that lets users get on the job experience to better prepare them for dev roles by assigning them
- mock tickets on a large codebase - reviewing their PR submissions - giving them AI mentorship.
it's just the frontend for now and would really welcome feedback from you guys!!