The Death of Vibe Coding: Why Sridhar Vembu is Calling for a New Engineering Discipline

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Nowadays, the tech industry is fixated on a term that sounds more like a playlist than a career: Vibe Coding. Vibe coding

 refers to a future in which you describe a vibe or intent to an AI, and the machine takes care of the rest. It was coined by former OpenAI engineer Andrej Karpathy and supported by leaders such as Sundar Pichai. However, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu is raising a much-needed alarm as Silicon Valley hails this as the ultimate democratization of software.

Vembu has called on engineers to abandon vibe coding in favor of a more methodical approach he refers to as ACE (AI-massisted Code Engineering) in a number of widely shared posts and industry talks.

Vibe Coding: What Is It?

The technique of creating applications by interacting with AI agents such as Cursor, Windsurf, or Replit rather than writing line-by-line syntax is known as vibe coding.

The Allure: It's quick. You don't need to know Python or JavaScript to create a working MVP in a weekend.

The Fear: Professional engineers perceive this as the start of the end. What would happen to the software engineering job market if a non-technical manager could vibe an app into existence?

The Vembu Critique: How Vibes Cause Debt

Vembu is not a luddite; Zoho makes extensive use of AI tools. But he contends that the phrase vibe coding creates a dangerous illusion for enterprise-grade systems by making software development seem easy and carefree.

1. The Technical Debt Trap

Vembu cautions that although AI is capable of producing 90% of boilerplate code, it lacks architectural vision. He observes that Vibe coding just piles up tech debt faster and faster until the whole thing collapses. Without human supervision, these AI-generated apps turn into black boxes that are hard to scale or debug when something goes wrong.

2. The Crisis of Junior Developers

The double-edged sword of AI productivity is among Vembu's most striking arguments. Senior architects are ten times more productive thanks to AI, but junior engineers' jobs are also in jeopardy. Where will the next generation of senior architects come from if we stop hiring juniors because AI can perform their "entry-level" tasks?

3. Magic All the Way Down is the definition of complexity.

In response to the hype, Vembu famously said, All code is magic until it is lowered by the compiler and that code is magic until magic all the way down. His argument is straightforward: you are only a prompt operator and not an engineer if you do not comprehend the layers of abstraction (compilers, memory management, security protocols).

Tips for Engineers: How to Remain Current

Vembu's message is actually very empowering for those who are concerned about AI job fears. He offers three strategies for becoming AI-proof

Become a Domain Expert: Don't just code as a generalist. Gain a thorough understanding of a particular industry (such as manufacturing, healthcare, or finance) so that you can direct AI to address practical issues.

Pay attention to the Essential Complexity: AI excels at accidental complexity (boilerplate). For the essential complexity—the fundamental reasoning and original problem-solving—humans are still required.

Take Control of the Architecture: Put more effort into creating systems rather than just writing code. Discover how parts work together, how data moves safely, and how to maximize performance.

Concluding remarks

The days of coding as a syntax exercise are over, but the software engineer era is just getting started. ACE won't replace engineers, according to Sridhar Vembu, but it will make engineers much more productive.

The vibe may help you get started, but the world's software won't function without engineering discipline.

Vibe Coding's Ascent

The argument between vibe coding and conventional engineering is examined in this video, with particular attention paid to Sridhar Vembu's refutations of industry hype.

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