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> why a competent programmer wouldn’t have tried it by this point

What does one have to do with the other? Since when is following every fad a prerequisite for competence?

Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just telling you how some hiring managers might think, not endorsing the opinion and it's definitely not something I consider in my hiring.

I will say it's a little weird to frame it as "every fad" though. Do you really not see any net new or lasting utility for software engineering in AI tools? If not then more power to you, but software engineering being a fast-moving field where there are (fair or unfair) expectations to keep up is nothing new.

I certainly keep an eye on these developments, but I think the jury is still out on how useful/beneficial they actually are in practice. Generating more code in less time is not a useful measure of productivity for me.

Agree the jury is still out, but "More code in less time" is a shallow strawman. The better question is what is it good at and what is it not good at, and what are the ways to best leverage those capabilities. I've seen enough use cases from enough engineers now that I firmly believe anyone saying "nope never useful" is sticking their head in the sand.

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