Engineers, Don’t Fear the Vibe
The best thing to happen to engineers—or the start of a slow erosion of the craft?
I’m a big fan of anyone willing to act. That’s my favorite thing about vibe coding: anyone can do it. And for many, that’s where the story starts.
But it’s also where things get complicated.
We’re in a moment where the ability to ship software has been radically democratized. With LLMs, people can generate full apps with minimal technical background. Just like how Home Depot once freed homeowners from dependency on professional tradespeople, AI now empowers non-engineers to bring their ideas to life.
It’s exhilarating, it’s game-changing, and like many DIY endeavors, it can get dangerous.
Back in the day, Home Depot gave me the confidence to replace a light fixture. Then YouTube gave me the step-by-step instructions to build a custom floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Despite my Bob Villa moments, I still don’t mess with high-risk projects like gas lines and structural repairs. That’s how I think about LLMs. They enable velocity and participation, but they don’t replace wisdom or safety.
Vibe coding often gets mocked, and let’s be honest—a lot of it is warranted. But here’s what makes me uncomfortable: the smugness from some seasoned engineers, acting like LLM-driven code is inherently flawed just because it wasn’t human-written.
Let me challenge that because LLM-driven code is here to stay in some shape or form, and mocking it is not a productive use of our energy.
Years ago, I led a team of a dozen sharp, formidable engineers. Alas, we missed an obvious HIPAA compliance issue that cost us dearly—fines, war rooms, loss of trust, etc. It was so bad that it’s my go-to answer when an interviewer asks me: “When have you failed?”
Would an LLM have caught it? Maybe. Maybe not. But I can’t say with certainty it would’ve done worse.
We pretend human engineering is flawless. It isn’t.
Engineering Without Engineers
Today, companies are laying off engineers by the thousands. Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Meta—all pivoting to “AI-first.” The narrative isn’t cost-cutting. It’s “alignment with exponential opportunity”.
But, at what cost?
Evan Armstrong puts it bluntly:
“If we aren’t careful, the cutthroat nature of startup development will mean the most popular uses of the tech won’t benefit humanity. They’ll just benefit shareholders.”
Mark Zuckerberg takes it a step further, saying AI will replace much of the work done by mid-level engineers.
“AI will let us build better products faster — and also eliminate some of the work that mid-level engineers do today.”
It might sound like a Silicon Valley fever dream—but there’s research to back it up.
In 2023, researchers released SWE-bench, a benchmark that tests whether LLMs can fix software bugs in real GitHub repos. Turns out, they can. Models like GPT-4 and Claude are already holding their own—and getting better with every release—solving issues that used to require human intervention.
Hidden Costs of Vibe Coding
We need to talk more about David Laribee’s concept of "learning debt." It’s the invisible tax we pay when engineers skip the long road of craftsmanship and go straight to generating outputs with LLMs.
“When you rely too heavily on AI to generate code without understanding the fundamentals, you borrow against your future competence.”
Vibe coding is powerful, but it flattens the feedback loop. Engineers don’t sharpen instincts. They offload decisions. Instead of learning to engineer systems, they assemble artifacts.
Here’s one of many cautionary tales that made the rounds:
This isn’t about intelligence—it’s about exposure and tacit knowledge. If you've never been burned by a rollback, how would you know to fear it? That’s learning debt.
Plot Twist: Where the New Value Lies
This chaotic moment could become a major advantage for the engineers who choose to stick around.
When the dust settles, the companies that move fast without thinking will suffer. And who will they call? The engineers who understand systems, scale, safety, and sound architecture.
After all, you can vibe the code, but you can't fake the craft.
Here are opportunities for engineers to earn job security and great pay:
Engineers who can fix vibe coding or agentic coding mistakes as "firefighters."
Those who can coach others on software craft as mentors and multipliers.
Employing AI for the boring tasks—documentation, package management, and boilerplate code, freeing engineers to focus on meaty, meaningful work: architecture, resilience, edge cases, entropy, and innovation.
Vibe coding isn’t the end of engineering. It’s the re-leveling of it.
Just like automation reshaped manufacturing, I believe vibe coding will ultimately elevate the engineering profession, turning engineers into curators of quality, arbiters of context, and defenders of craft. That’s not just good for software—it’s great for engineers' growth (and salary).
AI won’t replace engineers. But it will replace engineers who refuse to evolve.
Remember: you can install a ceiling fan, but if your home’s foundation cracks, you'd better call someone who knows what they’re doing.
"We pretend human engineering is flawless. It isn’t."
To err... I mean, *engineer*... to engineer is human!
I see it as an evolution where the hype is screaming revolution. Like job interviews for AI Engineer on the applications side are pretty much "do you know how to use an API" and "have you done evaluations of LLM output". Pretty basic stuff for any engineer.
Still, the fact that everything should be checked and there are new tools and capabilities, must mean some level of human-in-the-loop engineering.
Some stuff will be shed, no doubt. Certain skills are already devalued, sure. But, like grief, everyone will have to do their time in the cycle before they can move on.