People say, “I am vibe-coding. Therefore, I am a software engineer.” This is like saying, “I can ride a bike, so I can drive a car.” Both have wheels. Both can move forward, right? Here’s what I’ll say: try merging onto a highway on a bicycle. You’ll learn fast what’s missing. Mapping the Territory Today I want to place vibe-coding, coding, regular coding, and software engineering onto the same map. So you’ll know when to pedal and when to drive. ...
Most developers ask AI tools to write a function or fix a bug. That’s fine, but here’s the cheat code I discovered: treat AI like a developer on your team. When I do that, everything changes. The Pattern I Discovered I use AI tools every day in my professional work and personal projects. Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini; I subscribe to all of them. Over time, I’ve noticed a pattern. These tools excel at zooming in. By that, I mean they’re excellent at specific tasks: generating code, writing tests, refactoring functions, etc… . We all know this. ...
“So, what kind of engineer are you?” “I’m a Python engineer.” Every time I hear this, I cringe a little. Not because Python isn’t amazing—it absolutely is. But because somewhere along the way, we’ve started defining ourselves by our tools instead of our craft. I’m sure you’ve heard it too: “I am an AWS engineer,” “I am a React developer,” as if the tool has become their entire professional identity. ...