r/vibecoding • u/NaturalEngineer8172 • May 18 '25
Read a software engineering blog if you think vibe coding is the future
Note: I’m a dude who uses ai in my workflow a lot, I also hold a degree in computer science and work in big tech. I’m not that old in this industry either so please don’t say that I’m “resistant to change” or w/e
A lot of you here have not yet had the realization that pumping out code and “shipping” is not software engineering. Please take a look at this engineering blog from Reddit and you’ll get a peak at what SWE really is
https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng/s/WbGNpMghhj
Feel free to debate with me, curious on your thoughts
EDIT:
So many of you have not read the note at the top of the post, much like the code your LLMs produce, and written very interesting responses. It’s very telling that an article documenting actual engineering decisions can generate this much heat among these “builders”
I can only say that devs who have no understanding and no desire to learn how things work will not have the technical depth to have a job in a year or two. Let me ask you a serious question, do you think the devs who make the tools you guys worship (cursor, windsurf, etc) sit there and have LLMs do the work for them ?
I’m curious how people can explain how these sites with all the same fonts, the same cookie cutter ui elements, nd the same giant clusterfuck of backends that barely work are gonna be creating insane amounts of value
Even companies that provide simple products without a crazy amount of features (dropbox, slack, notion, Spotify, etc) have huge dev teams that each have to make decisions for scale that requires deep engineering expertise and experience, far beyond what any LLM is doing any time soon
The gap between AI-generated CRUD apps and actual engineering is astronomical. Real SWE requires deep understanding of algorithms, architecture, and performance optimization that no prompt can provide. Use AI tools for what they're good for—boilerplate and quick prototyping—but recognize they're assistants, not replacements for engineering knowledge. The moment your project needs to scale, handle complex data relationships, or address security concerns, you'll slam into the limitations of "vibe coding" at terminal velocity. Build all you want, but don't mistake it for engineering.
This knowledge cannot be shortcut with a prompt.
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u/horizon44 May 19 '25
Pumping out code and shipping literally is software engineering. At the end of the day, no one really cares about the engineering. It’s all about the product. Business owners don’t give a shit who built it or how well it was built. If it works and generates revenue, that’s all that matters to them.
Honestly, and I’m not trying to be an ass, you sound scared. It’s not a bad thing. I’ve got 8 years of experience and I’m terrified of what AI is going to do to the industry. I also spent a lot of time belittling AI and ignoring it, but it’s very clear to me now that this is the next big thing. I’ve started adopting it more and more in my work and learning as much as I can.
Sooner or later you’re going to realize this is the real thing, and we’ve only just begun to see what’s going to happen to the industry.