Beyond the Hype: The Real Problem with "Vibe Coding" and How to Fix It
The "Vibe Coding" Scam: What Your Company Is About To Waste Millions On
Your tech team just rebranded incompetence as innovation.
They're calling it "vibe coding" — and your executives are falling for it.
The Emperor's New Code
"Vibe coding" is flooding Twitter and LinkedIn, celebrated as the creative future of software development.
The brutal truth? It's just shitty coding with better marketing.
Let me translate what's really happening:
$8.7M Down the Drain: Real Implementation Disasters
I've spent the last 18 months cleaning up "vibe coding" disasters. The results are expensive:
The Fintech Meltdown
A payment processing system built by 12 "vibing" developers collapsed under real-world load.
The Pitch: "Our intuitive approach moves faster than traditional development."
The Reality: No error handling, zero tests, undocumented APIs.
The Cost: Complete system rebuild at 3.4x the original budget.
When customers couldn't process payments, nobody was celebrating the "vibes."
The Marketing SaaS That Never Launched
A "creative" codebase with custom frameworks built by developers who "felt the solution."
The Pitch: "We're not constrained by outdated practices."
The Reality: Developers spent 82% of their time fixing critical bugs.
The Cost: Company missed their market window and got acquired for assets only.
Their competitors with "boring" code are now worth $200M.
The Enterprise AI Catastrophe
An LLM implementation by a team that "vibed with AI" without understanding the architecture.
The Pitch: "Our natural approach to AI yields more human results."
The Reality: Hallucination rates 5x industry average, unusable latency, massive data leakage.
The Cost: $3.2M investment scrapped entirely.
The CTO who approved this approach just updated his LinkedIn profile.
Why This Matters NOW
Your company is about to fall for this exact scam. Here's why:
The talent shortage is pushing companies to hire anyone who can string together a function
Boot camps are optimizing for quick employment rather than actual understanding
AI coding tools make it easier than ever to implement without comprehension
Tech influencers with zero implementation experience are romanticizing "vibes"
How to Identify "Vibe Coders" Before They Destroy Your Project
Add these three questions to your interview process immediately:
"Can you walk me through the performance implications of this code?"
"How would you test this implementation for edge cases?"
"What established patterns informed this design decision?"
Watch their eyes glaze over. That's the "vibe" leaving the room.
The 5-Minute Codebase Health Check
Already suspect you have "vibe code" in production? Run this diagnostic:
Test Coverage: Run coverage reports (anything under 60% is a disaster waiting to happen)
Documentation: No up-to-date README or API docs? Red alert.
Error Handling: Search for generic try/catch blocks with no specific handling
Component Coupling: High coupling scores predict maintenance nightmares
Dependency Health: Extremely outdated or bleeding-edge-only dependencies signal problems
I've never seen a "vibe coded" project pass more than one of these checks.
The Implementation Rescue Plan That Actually Works
If you've inherited a "vibe coded" system, this approach has saved all three companies above:
Isolate the Damage: Identify and contain the most problematic components
Rebuild in Parallel: Construct proper replacements alongside legacy components
Migrate Incrementally: Move functionality one validated piece at a time
Document Everything: Create patterns as you rebuild to prevent recurrence
The Hard Truth No One Is Telling You
The painful reality about "vibe coding" is that it's not new. It's the same incompetence that's plagued software development for decades, just with a TikTok-friendly rebrand.
The engineers who actually deliver working systems?
They understand fundamentals. They document their decisions. They test their code. They use established patterns. They prioritize maintainability.
And they're quietly judging the "vibe coders" who will be asking them for jobs in 18 months.
What To Do Next
Forward this to your CTO (they'll thank you when they're not explaining a failed project to the board)
Run the 5-minute health check on your most critical systems today
Add the three questions to your interview process immediately
Your company will avoid millions in wasted implementation costs.
Instead of "vibing" with your code, start understanding it.
P.S. The most dangerous part? Your executives can't tell the difference between "vibe coding" disasters and actual innovation. The technical implementation details are invisible until systems fail.
Lot of noise around vibe coding in all places.
Thank you. Great coverage on vibe coding.
I think no alternative to best/proven principles of software engineering.
I saw many messages where people say, they are facing lot of issues in production because of using vibe coding.
I never saw a single message where author said, successful production implementation using vibe coding.