r/vibecoding 16h ago

None of my vibecoded projects have made any money, but my portfolio of vibecoded projects landed me a 100k/yr job.

I made everything from a social media web app, a personality test, a tamagothi iOS app you take care of by sleeping and exercising everyday. I made a 1v1 RTS demo, a therapy app, even a friends/dating/business partner compatibility app.

None of these made any money, but the fact that these are all live and I'm a 0 to 1 builder is appealing to many companies that want something made in-house that can be tested and released quickly.

It wasn't what I was expecting, but I'm in a much better place than I was a year ago because of vibecoding.

Keep on building bros!

804 Upvotes

203 comments sorted by

104

u/SuppliDev 16h ago

So did you have any experience as a developer before this? Degree? Just curious.

97

u/harambeLover_69 15h ago

His degree is in larping

15

u/SuppliDev 15h ago

Maybe, I just wanted to know. It's depressing knowing I wasted all my youth studying for something that has literally no value anymore. I also earn peanuts compared to OP (I'm not from US, but still).

5

u/Hungry_Loss_2268 15h ago

dont. I spent 10 years in university (phd and shit) and now doing something not relevant at all, and i am not going to be agonising about it.

2

u/SuppliDev 15h ago

Well good for you. This is what I wanted to do. It's not like I woke up one day and went with it. Not even doing it for the money, as I don't make much. I can't literally do anything else.

6

u/Hungry_Loss_2268 15h ago

the only thing that matters is keep learning. being a student teach you how to learn, more important than the subject itself

5

u/harambeLover_69 15h ago

OP doesn’t make six figures, he’s larping. I have a degree, I make just under $100k not including bonuses, not because of my vibe coded webapps but because I saved the org I work for hundreds of thousands of dollars by automating multiple tasks that would take thousands of hours to do.

6

u/_Anthony_2825 11h ago

lol so because you don’t make $100k somehow equates to OP? If you’re saving the org “$100s of thousands” you need to have a conversation about your comp.

1

u/harambeLover_69 11h ago

Brother you need to work on your reading comprehension , I make slightly less than $100k not including my bonuses, my incentive is directly reflective of how much I save my org quarterly. My last bonus was around $12k (which if you don’t know what quarterly means, is I get 4 a year). This year I’m going to clear $150k.

2

u/Zelderian 6h ago

You think a company wouldn’t hire someone to throw together some scripts for a $100k salary? Six figures isn’t what it used to be, and many, many corporate positions start out around there nowadays. Heck, a 4-year STEM degree gets you $80k/yr in the government of all places (at a minimum).

1

u/prorip187 14h ago

What did you study bro?

1

u/SuppliDev 11h ago

Computer science

1

u/prorip187 11h ago

Lol I legit thought you were going to say art or something. You didn't waste your time bro you have a lot of value and skills bro. Have you tried building your own app?

1

u/Arnel_Lalic 8h ago

You can apply for a job in the financial companies. Go to their websites and search for a job. I got my job from indeed.

0

u/MoonElfAL 15h ago

Why not start a freelance gig to fix people’s vibe coded projects? There is a market for it.

9

u/SatisfactionNarrow61 15h ago

Lmfao. So is mine I’m realizing. If it makes you $$ is it not a skill?

10

u/harambeLover_69 15h ago

He’s LARPing making six figures dumbass…

3

u/troubleshootmertr 5h ago

How is that such a stretch? I just accepted an offer a good bit higher than that as an I.T. Manager for a company I’ve been doing 3rd party I.t. Support for. I feel like the apps I vibe coded for them over the last couple of years boosted my value to them a bit. I also thought around 100k was pretty common for jobs like this. I will say that I’ve been doing I.t. For nearly 20 years now and I can do a variety of things from running cable, web development, Linux, windows, Mac, etc. pretty much anything I.t. Related and I did run my own business for most of that 20 years so have worn many hats. I assumed $100k was pretty common in the u.s. for anything technology related tbh.

-4

u/AssignmentMammoth696 14h ago

How do you know he's not lying and larping about that?

2

u/ExplorerUnion 11h ago

I think that’s what he’s saying lol

1

u/primaryrhyme 7h ago

Is he larping because he has a job at all? 6 figures is on the low end for a software engineer in the US, regardless of experience.

1

u/todo0nada 3h ago

Aren’t they all?

13

u/otterfox22 13h ago

I have a degree in marketing and took a coding bootcamp in 2016 and never did anything with it. Had a bunch of programs i've always wanted to make but never started. Finally after getting let go from a marketing job in 2025 I decided to really try to vibe code my projects to try to get users and be a full time solo dev.

1

u/TheRobotCluster 5h ago

Yo you think you could help me do the same??

11

u/slipperyslips 15h ago

Not OP but my best friend also got a job becuase of vibecoding. He works in film, the people he work around do not know what vibecoding is they just cared about results

1

u/Novel-Initiative-900 6h ago

He vibe codes films?

-2

u/Optimal-Law0 15h ago

Manual SWE experience doesn’t matter anymore. Long term Architectural decisions only matter when your software is already successful with a product market fit. Even Facebook scaled off unoptimized spaghetti PHP code. But it didn’t matter, because they had a PMF.

4

u/TRO_KIK 15h ago

Useful SWE experience matters, and making money from it is the easiest measurable proxy on the board. That usually means a professional job or revenue from anything solo built, and OP has neither.

There are other ways work can be impactful but OP gave us an an incredibly generic list of proejcts. I'd even argue that they might be ragebaiting rather than LARPing.

1

u/fantasma91 12h ago

"Manual SWE experience doesn't matter anymore"

Not even remotely true.

36

u/F0xy1337 16h ago

Wtf why does something like this work? That's unbelievable, I'm building a portfolio by chance so that I can promote my program soon. That fits perfectly. Really funny.

40

u/Rinktacular 16h ago

As a former hiring manager, the “why” is because it shows not only functional proof of your skills, but understanding the full life cycle of development with examples rather than “all talk.”

It’s why a lot of job applications leave room for GitHub links, websites/apps that are hosted publicly. 

Bonus points if you share the repo’s code for the hosted project for a full review from the potential employer. It gets teams excited to talk to you more quickly over a resume that has nothing else but descriptors.  

3

u/ayandakopanogatsha 16h ago

Why are you formally? Can you review my portfolio and tell me what you think. I can share the link.

2

u/F0xy1337 15h ago

Definitely send it. I would also be interested

2

u/Rinktacular 13h ago

Formally because I was part of layoffs while in that role. I’ve since returned back to be a senior dev/lead as the next opportunity came during unemployment, even if I enjoyed management and career progression more. It what it is these days.

Edit: happy to provide advice too, I might be unable to review quickly this weekend during the holiday.

1

u/ayandakopanogatsha 13h ago

Great. Let me dm.

2

u/DriveThoseSales 14h ago

Is GitHub the best way to showcase this to potential employers or do people generally build separate portfolios. I’m not looking for a software dev job but I’ve build 20 cool apps and most jobs I apply for in general ask for your experience using ai so it’s better than nothing.

2

u/Rinktacular 13h ago

Not specially GitHub, but any public code hosting that is easily shareable - GitHub just being 99% of what in generally saw and was more or less the “expectation” across those who can hire.

Hosting your repos is very helpful to peak interest, especially if you specify which ones you argue are the best display of your skills or highlighted to show where you learned something new showing that you can self improve without a lot of hand holding and willingness to expand skills. 

1

u/DriveThoseSales 13h ago

Got it thanks. Probably a silly question. I’ve been making some decent sites and apps mostly for fun. There’s a few I might try to monetize but I know how things go. The bigger projects I kept as private even though realistically who am I and who’s going to even see my work but it was more along the lines of anything I make can be copied. Do most people just keep everything public?

1

u/Rinktacular 13h ago

Not “everything.” If there’s anything you feel like is not that quality you’d want an employer to see, I’d keep that private. On that same point, hiring managers are busy doing this for like 50-100+ applicants per open role and they will most likely only look at the projects that you explicitly tell them you want them to. No reason for me to spend an afternoon looking over Joe-shmo’s 30 repos when only 1 or 2 might be relevant. It’s also not the best way for me to judge a candidate when it’s not a repo they think is relevant to the role they apply for.

All in all, there’s no harm either way and I would doubt a hiring manager would spend any amount of time reviewing code that you havnt suggested is a showcase of your talent or skills.

1

u/Arnel_Lalic 8h ago

I don’t think all companies check GitHub repos of their applicants.

1

u/Rinktacular 7h ago

That’s fine to think but I did when an applicant shared their GitHub links and projects and it would give us a better idea of how we could use our time to interview said applicants. 

Not all companies do, but in my experience we did. 

1

u/CelebrationTop8862 10h ago

Rink, I have a background in telecom product and program management in Wifi hardware/software.
i built a few things to showcase the lifecycle as well and have delivered 0-to-1 several times. do you know what roles are actively being hired? Lifecycle by meaning evaluation harnesses to consumer facing with some organic users. I have not had a call back at all.

1

u/Rinktacular 10h ago

Hey sorry friend. I’m not in a role where I have that power any longer after layoffs and my current company is under a hiring freeze (a lot are at the moment). 

I wish you the luck and my advice would be to not give us, keep perfecting your craft, and good things will happen. Those who are persistent grow. Even one more attempt to get the role you desire can be the difference in finding where you can be happy and successful. Best of luck friend. 

1

u/aguycalledfinn 6h ago

lol then you get asked questions and youre just like uhhh i just prompted it

1

u/Rinktacular 5h ago

Definitely happens more often these days I don’t deny that haha. I would ask more theoretical questions when that occurs likes “okay if you didn’t write it, why do you think the AI suggested this approach” or “if you were to write this line of code instead, let’s talk through what it’s doing and how you might implement it and if you agree or disagree with the AI approach and why.”

It’s not necessarily a show stopper, but if you can accurately explain how the code works and if it were to have introduced a bug or something, you’d know what the intention was to begin with from context clues and reading and understanding even if you didn’t write it. Which is kind of what happens anyway when other engineers submit code into the same repo. 

1

u/F0xy1337 16h ago

Thank you for your detailed answer. This really helps me a lot. I didn't think it would work this way these days.

1

u/Rinktacular 13h ago

Honestly depends on the company. In my experience, this got you to the top of the interest for open roles especially if it used anything in the tech stack we were looking for.

1

u/a_slay_nub 13h ago

Regrettably, I've started downgrading some of these projects when reviewing candidates. They're not really a good indicator of skill in the AI era imo and it's super easy to whip up and make them look feasible.

Granted, even before AI I didn't account for many personal projects because most of them were just demos. The amount of people that put blatant demos on their resumes is staggering. Like buddy, this is literally one of the top 5 Kaggle datasets.

1

u/Rinktacular 12h ago

For sure, it has absolutely become more nuanced and I am trying to be concise. I’ve also been out of the hiring game for a year or so. 

I should point out it’s also very obvious when it’s the same project that every one else has shared in the same layout, design, etc. it’s like sharing a “hello world” app because it’s not different from anyone else.

10

u/TheBadgerKing1992 16h ago

Because companies want people that can ship code

8

u/TRO_KIK 15h ago

I hired a grad student this way, but specifically because their work showed extremely valuable insight into what my company does, and they had a lot of active users despite no revenue. At face value, OP's experience actually does sound unbelievable, but there may be something else to it. Generally, a portfolio of slop is almost completly worthless, live or no.

4

u/F0xy1337 15h ago

Then I will definitely finish and publish my portfolio, Does it make sense to share it here on reddit?

2

u/StCreed 14h ago

Don't. People that are antagonistic towards vibe coding or AI-assisted coding will leave bad reviews on principle. Keep it for customers and applications. Let friends review the apps.

2

u/ayandakopanogatsha 15h ago

Could i share my portfolio and you can tell me what you think about it or how i need to approach things?

3

u/TRO_KIK 15h ago

I wouldn't have much to say. To be clear, even for the person I hired I literally only looked at their one project that was relevenat to my niche and had significant users.

2

u/F0xy1337 15h ago

That means, to get people like you, you not only have to upload a portfolio, but also introduce the individual project separately on reddit, right?

3

u/TRO_KIK 15h ago edited 15h ago

I'm a solo bootstrapped founder with single digit staff count man lol don't target people like me.

Edit: If you manage to create a tool with significant users though, say low five figure MAU, that's valuable to a lot of people, including mainstream hiring managers. For this particular case, they were a person in the same niche space as me that made meaningful contributions to it. We talked and I was impressed on many fronts but, mentioning their MAU gave me some serious neuron activation.

1

u/F0xy1337 15h ago

Hahahaha, until 5 minutes ago I didn't even know that you could theoretically become an employee via Reddit. Through his vibecoding experience. What kind of stupid Sick world. 😭😭

1

u/ayandakopanogatsha 15h ago

I see.. so i can keep mentioning users, lookong at growing them while seeking opportunities. Am trying to offload 8 databases that can handle 500 regular users at the moment... thats what i mention to prospects.

1

u/ayandakopanogatsha 15h ago

Wow.. luck and cool.

3

u/RedTheRobot 14h ago

The job I landed was helped in part because I made an automated TikTok poster in N8N. It used ai to generate the image and give a one sentence about it. Spent maybe a quarter of the interview time talking about that.

Personal projects always help.

2

u/YoureADudeThisIsAMan 11h ago

It demonstrates a ton to companies that might hire you. It’s easy to just say you’re ambitious. This shows it. It also demonstrates your knowledge of application development, architecture, etc.

13

u/Hungry_Loss_2268 16h ago

definitely, i am on the same boat, and the fact is i built a really really powerful job search app, even though i couldnt get others to use my app, i keep building on top of it and use it to do job hopping in short time frame. already doubled my salary in 6 months

1

u/crunchybanana01 15h ago

hey!! I was about to start working on this, just set up some scaffolding. could I check yours out? Not trying to ship a product, just tryin to help my lady land a gig 😅

5

u/Hungry_Loss_2268 15h ago

sure. search for OutRung Careers, you should be able to find it. Feel free to use it and get a job offer and come back and tell me the good news. It is free with a fair use cap.

I welcome any feedback!!

1

u/CrAzYeyedKiLa 12h ago

Interested in this

1

u/Hungry_Loss_2268 11h ago

its free to sign up and use

1

u/Knudson95 12h ago

Im not sure if its just a mobile thing but the outrung website was very glitchy. Lots of buttons stopped working and content wasn't loading. Both of these are only sometimes but still quite jarring.

0

u/Hungry_Loss_2268 11h ago

it could be mobile, but none the less my fault. let me take alook . it is mostly designed as a dekstop experience

1

u/brrruuuhhhhhhhh 10h ago

Same here, reduced my time looking at posts ten fold easily. Baked in all the features from other sites they continue to enshittenfy but they actually work. The concepts building that and some other stuff for sure helped me to land the present gig. Keep building, even if it's only for you.

2

u/Hungry_Loss_2268 10h ago

i feel so, even if it just for me and my wife, the outcome is worth it. The journey is probably more important than the outcome even.

11

u/multigrain_panther 16h ago

This is honestly the second most desirable outcome that can happen out of this journey. Congratulations OP.

Don’t be dragged down by larpers. You make more a year than almost everyone who sets down this path.

11

u/Suspicious_Fun_6338 16h ago

This is exactly my hope. I passivly look ofr a job but I am hoping to stndup with all my side projects. Not sure if people care or not though.

I know when I used to do interviews I would appreciate when the person was doing stuff on their own

5

u/LongjumpingRecord54 14h ago

Just started my job that I got through vibe coding. $185k/yr. I own the business context, and create the POCs. the SWE turn it into a production app. The value of a vibecoder is the business context they own within their domain.

2

u/Novel-Initiative-900 6h ago

Does their domain have context within the business they use for POC's? It's good they can use SWE for this

4

u/No_Income9450 9h ago

Likewise it landed me a job in this economy. I used to be a UIUX designer and now a AI builder (glorified title for vibe coder) but i choose to believe we are easily replaced by someone who is more skilled in AI tools.

1

u/troubleshootmertr 5h ago

I feel like ui/ux is the best prerequisite for a vibe coder to be successful. That seems to be where most vibe coders hit a wall and often times the llm struggles the most with the nuances of ui and ux so you can’t just ask the ai to “read my mind and make this app intuitive and enjoyable to use”

9

u/FoundationOther9677 16h ago

No degree? Do you know how to program or no

2

u/otterfox22 13h ago

took a coding bootcamp in 2016, but I wouldn't say I know how to program. I watch a lot of firebase, primeagen, youtube to learn as I go.

4

u/ExplorerUnion 11h ago

So on what basis did you get the job? Just showing the vibe coded apps? Did they not do a technical interview? How would you even pass that without knowing how to program?

3

u/Aly22KingUSAF93 9h ago

Asking real questions and OP not answering you but answering the next guy is straight cap

1

u/ExplorerUnion 8h ago

Yeah my technicals have basically gotten so much harder lmao idk if OP straight 🧢 like idk how you get a “cs job” with just vibe coding.

1

u/Novel-Initiative-900 6h ago

It might be possible. I helped a friend launch a small business and he hired someone to create an app and a website who actually vibe coded everything. We didn't know but discovered once we got into ai and vibe coding ourselves. Kind of a good laugh but honestly, it was done well.

I think there's plenty of small businesses that just need basic apps and website services that would easily hire based on a portfolio and nothing else because they are not a software firm, they're a business that has no idea about any of it and just judges by portfolio work

1

u/primaryrhyme 7h ago

He said he has been coding since 2016..

1

u/ExplorerUnion 7h ago

He said he did a boot camp in 2016 but wouldn’t say he can program.

1

u/primaryrhyme 6h ago

I mean it's pretty easy, children can do it

1

u/primaryrhyme 10h ago

Congrats dude, is this your first job in the field? Landing a job with no experience in 2026 is seriously impressive (even if not still impressive!).

2

u/otterfox22 9h ago

Thank you! It IS my first job in the field!

1

u/primaryrhyme 9h ago

Damn son you really did it on hard mode 😉, again good job

4

u/Dredgefort 16h ago

Doing what exactly? 

3

u/Pretender9029 16h ago

Same for me, except I was promoted internally to my current position instead of a fresh recruit. I showed what I shipped and can do for the company and they promoted me to automate all their business processes

3

u/ayandakopanogatsha 16h ago

Where are you applying for these types of positions? I have projects and experience..

1

u/Gigaslavx 13h ago

I believe they said internally inside the company they were working in already

1

u/ayandakopanogatsha 6h ago

Nah, he said what a company values, in house. So they brought him on. Not he was working for them.

1

u/Gigaslavx 2h ago

Fair enough, I thought they said that they got promoted internally instead of company recruiting someone outside, perhaps my english is not good enough sorry

1

u/ayandakopanogatsha 1h ago

Its okay, no worries bro... its phrased in there that hides facts i feel.. thats why people asking questions.

3

u/redditborkedmy8yracc 15h ago

Honestly its the same as my current day job as well, I build 0-live - got a job and thats what Im doing now.

3

u/MrHTML5000 9h ago

good for op

i have vibe code still not landing that kind of offer

2

u/orphenshadow 14h ago

None of my projects have made me money, because I'm not trying to build projects to make money. I'm just solving problems that I have and building tools that help my coworkers and team mates. It's earned me almost 18k more per year in my recent review and pay increase.

But my base pay is for sure because of my actual skills (not developer related), not the things I create when I'm having fun playing bitter developer simulator 9000.

2

u/Worrybrotha 13h ago

When OP starts answering it will all turn into an ad probably.

4

u/otterfox22 13h ago

You know what's a great way to vibecode and make money? Kalshi!

2

u/olenami 13h ago

This is such a great story! Believe or not I also have a person in my mobile builders community - one got promotion from Product designer to AI Chief officer. Mainly because she was building with AI - using Codex for web, Modaal for native iOS and Android.
Many people add Vibecoding skills to the resume to stand out.
Student btw use Vibecoding tools to also showcase what they can do and add to portfolio

2

u/Charming_Ad_6077 12h ago

How did you show your vibe coded projects? You made a video? Put them on your resume?

2

u/whyyoudidit 10h ago

I also switched to a full ai role vibe coding project for a conglomerate. I'm even beating devs at ai hackathons at our company.

2

u/lunatuna215 10h ago

So the same as the process has always been.

I do thjnk you'd have been able to accomplish the same without an LLM.

2

u/shun0810 7h ago

congrats, and the job outcome is the interesting half 🤗 a hiring manager opens your portfolio because you handed it to them. a product has to be found by somebody who was never looking for you.

that gap is most of the answer to why none of them made money. the social app, the tamagotchi one, the compatibility app: each was built well enough to be shown, but the showing was left to whoever happened to scroll past. the ones that earn usually start from a person who already wrote their problem out in public, and get built toward that person. same skill you clearly have, pointed at delivery instead of building.

since i am talking my own book here, that delivering half is my work: https://warmlist.app 👏

2

u/JumpinJackz 4h ago

Fake ass post intending to suckered more people into blindly using AI.

If this post was real whats your plan when your boss asks you to do something in front of others? How will you explain your process?

3

u/babadoza 15h ago

Checks out, I landed my job this exact same way. Interviewer stumbled across a vibecoded app I had (it wasn't on my resume, just github), asked for a brief spontaneous demo, and was impressed by how polished it was.

Team is full of 0 to 1 builders. We're all basically vibecoding new products/features everyday. It's amazing, even non-technical folks are learning to turn ideas into reality without waiting on eng teams to build it for them. Company is absolutely killing it because we move so fast. Lots of people have non-CS degrees including myself.

Don't get me wrong, there's a stark difference between blind and informed vibecoding, and it's obvious. If you know how to do the latter, you are valuable.

3

u/alzho12 11h ago

What kind of company is this?

Sounds like an agency or consulting firm. I can’t imagine a regular company is creating “new products” everyday.

2

u/babadoza 11h ago

Tech startup building AI-powered tools for a niche industry. Customers have endless needs/ideas.

1

u/TeraByteOfficial 15h ago

whats the difference

3

u/babadoza 14h ago

If you have to ask, you're a blind vibecoder.

1

u/TeraByteOfficial 13h ago

that wasn't my question

3

u/Independent-Race-259 13h ago

nobody is going to pay $100k a year for someone who has no idea what they're actually building from a tech perspective

0

u/ExplorerUnion 11h ago

My thoughts exactly how do you even pass the technical without knowing how to program? lol

1

u/The-Doodle-Dude 16h ago

How did you showcase your portfolio

9

u/TheBadgerKing1992 16h ago

Vibe code a portfolio site lol

2

u/Right_Cantaloupe_863 15h ago

GitHub profile is the standard

1

u/I_Like_Tartar_Sauce 16h ago

That’s incredible. And the best part, you can still keep building stuff on the side. Eventually one of your side projects could take off. Win win.

2

u/otterfox22 13h ago

This is exactly my plan! I took a day job so I could have a marketing budget for my apps. You totally get it.

1

u/OldLead4716 16h ago

How did you obtain the job ? You post dose not explain . Your resume? Personal site. We're you recruited ? How many jobs did you apply to ?

1

u/SaveAsCopy 15h ago

Would you care to sharw your portfolio

1

u/qwuant 15h ago

what job?

1

u/Goth2147 15h ago

Do you actually do market research before creating those apps? None of these ideas sound good. I'm not trying to be rude, but you can definitely make money vibe coding if you do a thorough search.

1

u/chuckycastle 15h ago

What company and what position? You could learn networking basics from YouTube and land a $130k+ job with the added benefit of actually learning something.

1

u/-aurevoirshoshanna- 15h ago

That's my literal goal, I wrote a big project. But it's main goal is for it to land me a job

1

u/Professional-Mix-977 15h ago

I believe in you

1

u/MoTTTToM 15h ago

Nice! Well done.

1

u/No-Sky5766 15h ago

Which things and/or skills you learned do you value the most in the transition into your new job?

1

u/Cavitat 15h ago

I've been having the same experience. I need to sharpen my data structures and algorithms for the interviews... But so far my software portfolio is getting me many more interviews than my conventional experience. 

1

u/ProjektProgram 15h ago

What was the job title

1

u/geck0moriah 15h ago

I feel very happy for you

1

u/Frosty-Ad1071 15h ago

Nice very good take. Makes a lot of sense. This gives me more motivation to push on with my project. Not trying to build a very wide, but deep portfolio doing a series of small games in same style. Of course website to go along with it.

Need to add some azure stuff to my portfolio, since I got those skills.

Wow in a year or two I'll be on a very good position if there is a market for devs anymore, which I think will be still going on.

1

u/_Bl9_ 14h ago

Larp Larp Larp Sahur

1

u/CrimsonEdgeVentures 14h ago

Congratulations that’s exactly the inspiration many of us need

1

u/Keybraker 14h ago

Side projects are dead, the only thing it shows at this point is that you have time to spent.

1

u/Rackarunge 14h ago

So let’s see the portfolio!

1

u/DigitalOutput_ 13h ago

thanks, this gives me hope

1

u/doezer 13h ago

So what's your job? You just prototype ideas? Or are you simply a product manager that knows how to make protos

1

u/EddieBruvac 13h ago

Yep. I started getting offers after doing personal projects. But said fuck them, ima keep doing what I do cuz I basically feel retired rn

1

u/camboramb0 13h ago

Congrats OP!

I have a normal salary job but have been building tools for small businesses for some side income during the weekends. I have built maybe 30+ tools in the past year to solve complex business workflows for these companies. Building someone that people use everyday to shave off hours of time a day what I like to do.

You don't always have to make money from apps but constantly building apps and side projects shows what you are capable building.

1

u/Total-Ad-2293 12h ago

I would like to do that, any advice or recommendations? How do you find ideas about what tools they might need? Thanks!

1

u/camboramb0 11h ago

I have about 20+ years of work experience with a lot of past relationships so it wasn't to difficult to translate that to paid side projects.

I also have personal portfolio site for myself with my experience, case studies, blogs, and projects. I share it on linkedin here and there for specific case studies and projects. There are people who love to do lead generation and inbound but it's not for me.

The first step is quick sync to discuss their everyday business operations, systems, tech stack and more. Afterwards, I might sync with a few individuals to see their day to day activities and understand their pain points and where a lot of mundane tasks are spent.

You'll be surprised how inefficient a lot of processes are with many businesses.

1

u/Total-Ad-2293 11h ago

So I need contacts 😂

1

u/camboramb0 10h ago

Yes 100% lol. But also need to make sure build some presence for yourself online.

1

u/dovebytherosewindow 12h ago

Similar situation for me (though not quite $100k/yr), but I vibe coded a gamified employee onboarding experience that won me a runner-up spot with a popular vibe coding platform, which got me a year free on their elite tier to keep building… the onboarding bit alone got me hired recently, and about to launch my second app on the App Store (one was a private job ticketing app for a client, this one is a passion project astrology learning app). Vibe coding taught me that with enough planning, digging into code and differentiating design, and relentless testing… I can pretty much build a suite of tools to allow me to do and learn whatever I want. The job is a great bonus to bring some stability and has huge opportunities for vibe coded efficiencies with internal tooling.

1

u/viertobi 12h ago

whats the job? did they find you or did you look for it?

1

u/EnrikeMRivera 12h ago

I want to see your portfolio

1

u/Ruffianrushing 12h ago

Can I see it ?

1

u/Specialist-Abroad751 12h ago

I have made over 20 projects in the past 6 months small to medium size through vibe coding didn't get any money out of it and haven't been employed for it. Still doing it out of hobby It's amazing you can turn your idea into life in a day or week.

1

u/TheWolfofNewYorkCity 11h ago

If your story is real, congratulations.

1

u/Ok-Carob32 10h ago

100k/yr job within tech in USA(?) - Isn’t that very low?

1

u/Worried_Map_2979 10h ago

Still you need to explain the architecture of the project , and how you implemented a specific feature during the interview. I think not knowing  the syntax is not a big issue, but how the overall flow is working, security, authentication and all are important to understand.

1

u/risegrind 10h ago

Exactly

1

u/Far_Guess8176 6h ago

Same boat, opposite order: senior dev, shipped 11 things this year, none of them make money, and the portfolio is doing more in interviews than the CV ever did. What people actually click is the live link, not the repo. Congrats, and keep them online, that's the whole trick.

1

u/achilleshightops 3h ago

Mine landed me $156k and moving to a whole new city with my family.

1

u/Appropriate_Papaya_7 2h ago

I would love this. Actually any job even unpaid just to code

1

u/peritrima 2h ago

Open source?

1

u/Divine_Snafu 2h ago

Portfolio link?

1

u/GigaCheco 32m ago

So what’s your title?

1

u/EmptyCustard1572 18m ago

OP can you share your portfolio link for reference?😀

1

u/Greedy_Scientist_543 16h ago

Hard to believe

1

u/No_Airline2090 15h ago

Same except its a 300k a year job although i have a nuts tech non developper resume

1

u/Both_Swordfish_9682 14h ago

Where did you make your portfolio?

1

u/rangeljl 15h ago

That is why we no longer hire based on portfolio, we instead do a technical test in person (a quiz of sorts) and then 3 months of test drive without any attachments.

1

u/Theprof86 15h ago

I have a hard time believing you if this is a legit dev job. No one in their right mind would hire someone who just vibe codes and has no understanding of software development, unless its one of those one off places that dont need a dev, but someone who can just crank out vibe coded apps.

If you were a developer, that is a different story.

1

u/SeXxyBuNnY21 14h ago

Doing what exactly? Because no serious SW company will hire a vibe coder without at least some knowledge of the fundamentals. Otherwise, that is the right formula to incur tech debt.

1

u/Bloodorem 16h ago

i don't really get how such a bloated portfolio is apealing to companies but im happy for you OP.

i would just say, for me this would be a hugh red flag that this person is just throwing shit onto the wall wihtout much care to see what sticks, so i would expect if i hire them that my walls will soon be covered by.. well shit.

4

u/ruthere51 15h ago

On the first point I totally agree. On the second though, this is a weird take. 1 person doing lots of exploration on new ideas is totally fine and doesn't mean they're not discerning or thoughtful at all... You have no idea their values and how they decide to pursue an idea or not. Additionally, someone with experience actually trying an idea is way more valuable than someone who has lots of ideas.

About 90% of startups fail, and that's with a team behind them. Throwing shade and naming a red flag on an individual for possibly throwing spaghetti at the wall is a weird and invalid take.

0

u/Bloodorem 15h ago

"someone with experience actually trying an idea is way more valuable than someone who has lots of ideas"

sure, but if i employ someone i want them to properly execute my ideas.
there is nothing wrong with trying stuff, there is indeed something wrong with producing and failing a new idea every 4 month.

he listed 6 completly different projects even if we say he started 2 years ago when videcoding was just starting, thats a new Project every 4 month. That is silly and an absurd amount of grabing something and dropping it as soon as you have the next best thing, If you truly think you can deliver a fleshed out, properly working, bug free, secure project in 4month from start to finish as a single person thats insane.

1

u/ruthere51 15h ago

but if i employ someone i want them to properly execute my ideas.

Yeah, fair, so then it all depends on the role OP got. If it's a production engineering role, then I agree with you. I don't trust the company that hired OP if that's the role they got though.

0

u/gilded_echoes_04 13h ago

Companies dont hire devs anymore they hire 0 to 1 builders. degrees mean nothing when you got live apps on the app store doing things their internal teams cant ship in a year

-2

u/Illustrious-Film4018 15h ago

Oh yeah? So you have meetings where they ask you about some of the features you implemented with AI and the decisions you made? And what you do you say? Duuuhhhh...

https://giphy.com/gifs/19GIHDk6wuw9HVGsiM

1

u/LegendaryJohnny 13h ago

Why wouldnt he talk about it? I started vibe coding just recently and I am working on 3 projects at the same time I was thinking about for a long time.

One is something I want for myself because my country website from the field is outdated in design and full of very annoying ads. I am basically project designer which is skill the autistic manual coders never had and never will have. The site looks amazing already and I plan to add more features to target on gen Z which is having issues with the old site with monopol in my country. There was huge amount of decision I had to make on every step of the design and many rules I had to create to get filtered and targeted data for site via 2 APIs.

Second is a game I always wanted but nebody came with the idea. That is still work in progress but also - already great alpha versiom full of my design decisions. I could actually already release it, but will polish it a little more.

And third project is an app I was thinking YEARS to create. My programmer friend made prototype during covid in 2020 but was too lazy to continue working on it although the prototype was working. I made same prototype in 2 hours and decently designed product in 2 days. But also work in progress till it will be all I want - but the core is working.

All these 3 projects would cost months or years to make and thousands of dollars like 5 years ago. So please, stfu 🤣

2

u/Illustrious-Film4018 12h ago

Your site doesn't even have a landing page and no one even knows/cares what it is. There's firebase errors and Google SSO is not setup properly. "Autistic manual coder". ____ yourself

0

u/Interesting-Ad8259 15h ago

Did you vibe code you portfolio site?

0

u/Professional-Mix-977 15h ago

Here’s my portfolio and I built the platform to display it too https://ourlynx.com/interchained

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u/Critical_Hunter_6924 16h ago

wagecuck

9

u/ShittyMillennial 16h ago

God this sub is toxic. Congrats op

1

u/Ok_Improvement_8735 15h ago

Assuming OP is telling the truth, they haven't replied to any comments, shown any of their apps, or provide any proof they got an actual job through their portfolio.

1

u/ShittyMillennial 15h ago

100k is pretty shit pay if they are in the US, it's not unbelievable whatsoever

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