Ask HN: Would you hire a "vibe coder"? 1. For the team leaders / engineering managers out there, would you hire someone that was a self-proclaimed "vibe coder"? 2. What, if any, amount of education in programming-related topics (cs, history, languages, architecture, etc) should be required before entering the workforce? 2b. Do you think a potential rise in "vibe coding" is going to make it more difficult for less experienced workers to actually learn on the job? |
And before you say, "OK but they will improve, right?", let me give you an analogy.
We can build ladders to climb to the moon, we just need better ladder technology. Today, we can build very tall self-supporting ladders. We cannot yet build one tall enough to reach the moon, but by next year, or 2028 at the latest, we'll have ladders to the moon, or failing that, ladder technology that, in principle, will be sufficient to reach the moon.
Now replace "ladders to the moon" with "LLMs to AGI".
https://cendyne.dev/posts/2025-03-19-vibe-coding-vs-reality....
It is already the case where I interview less experienced people who ultimately have no ability to code. Vibe coding will make that problem worse. It will not make it harder for someone who actually can code get a job. IMHO
And you're expected to work 16 hour days. And weekends. And for about half the pay of a regular coder.
I don't know how they wrote that job listing with a straight face.
2. Any standard education in CS or SWE, AI hasn't changed anything about it IMHO. Only people hyping ChatGPT believe that the world has changed.
2b. It doesn't change anything since "vibe coding" (aka "code vomit") has no value to me. I want to work with juniors eager to learn, and vibe coders are not part of that group.
I already had bad experiences with "vibe coders" who can't explain or debug their code. They are like "pigeon CEOs" and only add problems without bringing solutions.
My understanding of vibe coding is that you prompt, the LLM does something, and if it passes the vibe check you go with it, and if not, you do something to revert it, and afterward you try another prompt. Reverting after it doesn’t pass a vibe check could be actual reverting or a forward fix.
If you read stuff and do research and spend time thinking when prompting or doing a vibe check, I think this is a valuable activity.
As I understand it vibe coding and “vibe check” refer merely to “a looks good to me” feeling with no deep understanding, not knowing what you don’t know, which ignores security holes and edge cases.
If my kids “vibe code” a fort with cardboard boxes and blankets they have a different intuition about stability, security, longevity, and the purpose of a fort than I do.
Someone could "vibe bake" cakes by trial and error with the help of AI, then try to sell them and get feedback. That might work, or they might poison someone. Alternately they could learn how to bake and study baking to develop actual skills and understand what they're doing.