About whether LLMs can replace outsourced teams that deliver full software projects.
Has this happened?
Yes 75 (56%)Not sure 22 (17%)No 36 (27%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether LLMs can replace outsourced teams that deliver full software projects.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
I don't know what's your experience with outsourcing. But people outsource full projects not the writing of a couple of methods. With LLMs still unable to fully understand relatively simple stuff, you can't expect them to deliver a project whose specification (like most software projects) contains ambiguities that only an experienced dev can detect and ask deep questions about the intention and purpose of the project. LLMs are nowhere near that. To be able to handle external uncertainty and turn it into certainty, to explain why technical decisions were made, to understand the purpose of a project and how it matches the project. To handle the overall uncertainties of writing code with other's people's code. All this is stuff outsourced teams do well. But LLMs won't be anywhere near good for at least a decade. I am calling it