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How to Vibe Code as a Senior Engineer

blog.alexmaccaw.com · 1,676 words · saved by 1 readers

Not in the traditional way—writing line after line of code, plumbing together brittle libraries, grinding through boilerplate. Instead, I’ve been vibe coding. Vibe coding is a new way of building software where you use one of the latest AI models to do most of the work. You write a good prompt, sketch out a plan, and let the model take over. It feels like rubbing a magic lamp and whispering your intent to a genie. However, just like a genie, unless you give it very specific wishes you're going to get something you didn't expect. The biggest change? Code is no longer expensive. It used to take weeks to build a feature. Now, with AI, a senior engineer can do it in an hour. A fully featured SaaS app? Perhaps 10 days. I know because I just built one. This isn’t just productivity—it’s a superpower. But it requires some experience to wield. Vibe coding has a bit of a bad rep, partly due to hype from Twitter-thread-bois, and partly because, up until now, the code these AI models produced hasn

Over the past few months, I’ve rediscovered my love for building software. Not in the traditional way—writing line after line of code, plumbing together brittle libraries, grinding through boilerplate. Instead, I’ve been vibe coding. Vibe coding is a new way of building software where you use one of the latest AI models to do most of the work. You write a good prompt, sketch out a plan, and let the model take over. It feels like rubbing a magic lamp and whispering your intent to a genie. However, just like a genie, unless you give it very specific wishes you're going to get something you didn'

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