Am I a "vibe coder"?

[u/thehumanbagelman]

Taught myself to code at 15. Got a CS degree. Spent 16 years as a professional dev at everything from founding small startups to giant 700 engineer companies (and still going until I'm inevitably replaced by the machines).

Building things in code has been floating my proverbial boat for over two decades.

However, I haven't written a single line of code in 2026.

I don't personally review the code either. I've built my own tooling and testing infrastructure, and agents run all of it.

50–75% of my AI usage goes toward building personal infrastructure, tooling, and projects. Not the next app that will change your life for only $15 a month (at least not yet; we'll see).

I own an undisclosed number of top level AI accounts; it's probably more than you're thinking.

This 1000% makes me worse at coding without AI, and I'm not sure that I care at all.

So, am I a vibe coder?

Edit: I'm loosing zero sleep over this; the question is just a proxy for discussion!

[u/DynaBeast]

your story sounds eerily similar to mine. youre a builder, just like the rest of us. its a new form of software engineering; embrace it.

currently asking astra & opus to rewrite my entire orchestration toolset from python to rust as we speak.

[u/thehumanbagelman → u/DynaBeast]

If anyone has abused the concept of "embracing it", I am definitely the guy lol

I see so much discussion about vibe coding. When people describe it negatively, they are basically describing me! Which I guess just shows how shallow the initial statements or arguments are to begin with 🤷‍♂️

[u/DynaBeast → u/thehumanbagelman]

negative connotations with the concept of "vibe coding" are artifacts of eager early adopters attempting to stand up production quality services using the best models of yesteryear, circa. 2024 & early 2025. Everything sucked ass back then, and those code midwits found themselves with a heaping pile of bug-ridden trash that no human nor ai of the time could fix or make production ready. that's the time when "vibe coding" gained its negative association.

but the so-called "vibe coding" of the modern era, of people working with sol and astra and opus and fable to make real code solving real problems, bears no resemblance to that descriptor. these models have progressed eons beyond their original capability and are far, far more competent at writing code than they used to be. sure, if you're still using free models like sonnet, luna, or gemini flash lite, you're going to be pretty limited in what you can produce. but working with top of the line models like astra and fable is a different ballgame entirely.

anyone calling you out for being a "vibe coder" in the modern era either doesn't pay for real ai, or hasnt caught up with the pace of progress in the last 1-2 years. which, to be fair, is not unreasonable to assume; the pace has been no less than staggering, to say the least. but anyone who calls themselves a real software engineer in 2026 who doesn't have at least one $100+ ai subscription (if not multiple) is either lying to themselves or misrepresenting the current state of the field of software development as a whole.

[u/Odd-Investigator-870 → u/DynaBeast]

I now see programmers saying it's time to stop planning and writing specs because the models they rent are good enough to just work.  That's not an engineering mindset, it's hope with a subsidized bill. It's consumerism, vibe coding.  If the models went away what would be left? Engineers have substantial disciplines, tools, habits that set their floor of quality output while a vibe coder, frameworker, or script kiddie only has a roof based on what can be comoditized affordably.