I work at a company with over 700 employees. And there are tons of use cases where a simple CRUD app is sufficient. Or where glue code needs to be written / changed for legacy systems. Or where an OS system like Camunda is deployed and needs to be configured, workflows developed, etc
The reality of companies out there is much simpler than the challenges of a startup that needs to build systems that are state of the art, scale for millions of users, etc There are companies out there that make millions, in areas you‘ve never heard of, and their core business does not depend on software development best practices.
In our company we have an IT team with the median age of fifty, team members who never have developed software, just maintain systems, delegate hard work to expensive consultants.
Now in that setting someone coming from a startup background is like someone coming from the future. I feel like a wizard who can solve problems in days, instead of weeks or months waiting for a consultant to solve.
Fair enough. There are valid use cases for vibe coding scripts and simple CRUD apps, which current AI tools are fairly competent at producing.
The thing is that those don't typically take weeks and months to build with conventional tooling. And I find it hard to believe that all you're doing is this type of integration work. But I suppose there are companies that need such roles.
> There are companies out there that make millions, in areas you‘ve never heard of, and their core business does not depend on software development best practices.
That is true.
I do think that this cowboy coding approach is doing these companies a disservice, especially where tech is not their main product. It's only creating more operational risk that on-call and support staff have to deal with, and producing more technical debt that some poor soul will inevitably have to resolve one day. That is, it all appears to work until one edge case out of thousands brings down the entire system. Which could all be mitigated, if not avoided, by taking the time to understand the system and by following standard software development processes, even if it does take longer to implement.
What you describe isn't new. This approach has existed long before the current wave of AI tooling. But AI tools make the problem worse by making it easier to ship code quickly without following any software development practices that ensure the software is robust and reliable.
So, it's great that you're enjoying these tools. But I would suggest you adopt a more measured approach and work closely with those senior and junior engineers, instead of feeling like a wizard from the future.
Who's reviewing all the code you are churning out with ai? If everyone is used to maintaining not developing software it doesn't sound like they'd be best suited to have to review lots of complex pull requests.
It sounds like you are moving very fast and probably have people just clicking "approve".
Good luck for the future to who ever owns your company!
When I setup systems, I thoroughly document them, test them, develop them according to architectural best practices. My AI assisted code generation is lightyears ahead of what I see in companies I have worked for. The best they —the companies—-do is hire expensive consultants. Who sell them preconfigured system. And when you look into those systems you won’t believe your eyes either. Because you instantly realise that those devs do not know much about architectural patterns, aout systems design, about software development best practices. Yet they sell their systems as well, because they offer a niche product where they have only a handful competitors.
In that setting someone with solid software engineering background using AI to solve problems is like a wizard from the team‘s perspective.
When I worked for startups I was constantly panicking to miss the latest tech trends, and I feared that I would be not marketable in case I didn’t catch up. But in mature companies things work much slower. They work with decades old technology. In that setting not the latest tech counts but being able to solve problems, with whatever means you can.
Man, who sucked the joy out of your life. Just try the damn thing. I have the staunchest anti-hypsters in my org and even they are using these tools heavily now.
I build most of not all of my stuff for work, and I ain't sharing that.
It's no panacea, but is there something to be had there? Abso-fucking-lutley. All of this would have been complete scifi at the beginning of this decade.
I’m super pro AI. I’ve been using ChatGPT since the day it released. I use an agent coder at work semi-regularly to reasonable levels of success. Big fan.
But I am exceedingly tired of phrases like “complete the work of weeks and months within days”. If AI is making devs 5x to 10x faster then I’d like to see some actual results. Internet is full of hypesters that make bombastic claims of productivity but never actually shown anything they’ve made.
Not the OP but this is smth I've vibecoded using cursor: https://bestphoto.ai/ MRR ~$150. It basically started as a clone of my other site: https://aieasypic.com (MRR 2.5k, 5-8k/mo rev) since I was having trouble keeping code context in mind and claude was pretty bad at doing full features with the tech stack I used for that site(Django BE, NextJS FE) making adding new features a pain, so I completely switched to a stack that claude is very good at NextJS fullstack(trpc BE) and now it can basically one-shot a feature request.
Just putting this here because a lot of times AI coding seems to be dismissed as smth that can't do actual work ie generate revenue, while its more like making money as a solo dev is already pretty rare and if you're working in a corp. instead you're not going to just post your company name when asked for examples on what you're using AI for.
Those are exactly the kind of AI slop products I would expect to be vibe coded. You've created yet another wrapper around LLM APIs where the business model is charging a premium over existing services. Your revenue depends on the ignorance of customers to not realize they can get the same or better service for cheaper from companies that actually do the hard work. I bet SEO hacking is really important to you.
It's irrefutable that AI tools can be used to create software that generates revenue. What's more difficult is using them to create something that brings actual value into the world.
AI is often used to pump out sites and apps that scam users, SEO spam, etc. So there is definitely a revenue stream that makes scammers and grifters excited for AI. These tools have increased the scope and reach of their scams, and provide a huge boost to their productivity.
That's partly why I'm curious about OP's work. Nobody who's using these tools while following best software engineering practices would claim that they're making them that much more productive. Reviewing the generated code and fixing issues counteracts whatever time is saved by generating code. But if they're vibe coding and don't even look at the code...
I work at a company with over 700 employees. And there are tons of use cases where a simple CRUD app is sufficient. Or where glue code needs to be written / changed for legacy systems. Or where an OS system like Camunda is deployed and needs to be configured, workflows developed, etc
The reality of companies out there is much simpler than the challenges of a startup that needs to build systems that are state of the art, scale for millions of users, etc There are companies out there that make millions, in areas you‘ve never heard of, and their core business does not depend on software development best practices.
In our company we have an IT team with the median age of fifty, team members who never have developed software, just maintain systems, delegate hard work to expensive consultants.
Now in that setting someone coming from a startup background is like someone coming from the future. I feel like a wizard who can solve problems in days, instead of weeks or months waiting for a consultant to solve.
Fair enough. There are valid use cases for vibe coding scripts and simple CRUD apps, which current AI tools are fairly competent at producing.
The thing is that those don't typically take weeks and months to build with conventional tooling. And I find it hard to believe that all you're doing is this type of integration work. But I suppose there are companies that need such roles.
> There are companies out there that make millions, in areas you‘ve never heard of, and their core business does not depend on software development best practices.
That is true.
I do think that this cowboy coding approach is doing these companies a disservice, especially where tech is not their main product. It's only creating more operational risk that on-call and support staff have to deal with, and producing more technical debt that some poor soul will inevitably have to resolve one day. That is, it all appears to work until one edge case out of thousands brings down the entire system. Which could all be mitigated, if not avoided, by taking the time to understand the system and by following standard software development processes, even if it does take longer to implement.
What you describe isn't new. This approach has existed long before the current wave of AI tooling. But AI tools make the problem worse by making it easier to ship code quickly without following any software development practices that ensure the software is robust and reliable.
So, it's great that you're enjoying these tools. But I would suggest you adopt a more measured approach and work closely with those senior and junior engineers, instead of feeling like a wizard from the future.
Who's reviewing all the code you are churning out with ai? If everyone is used to maintaining not developing software it doesn't sound like they'd be best suited to have to review lots of complex pull requests.
It sounds like you are moving very fast and probably have people just clicking "approve".
Good luck for the future to who ever owns your company!
When I setup systems, I thoroughly document them, test them, develop them according to architectural best practices. My AI assisted code generation is lightyears ahead of what I see in companies I have worked for. The best they —the companies—-do is hire expensive consultants. Who sell them preconfigured system. And when you look into those systems you won’t believe your eyes either. Because you instantly realise that those devs do not know much about architectural patterns, aout systems design, about software development best practices. Yet they sell their systems as well, because they offer a niche product where they have only a handful competitors.
In that setting someone with solid software engineering background using AI to solve problems is like a wizard from the team‘s perspective.
When I worked for startups I was constantly panicking to miss the latest tech trends, and I feared that I would be not marketable in case I didn’t catch up. But in mature companies things work much slower. They work with decades old technology. In that setting not the latest tech counts but being able to solve problems, with whatever means you can.
5 replies →
No one ever shares their great and shipped products. AI built slop is for generating hype not revenue or users.
Man, who sucked the joy out of your life. Just try the damn thing. I have the staunchest anti-hypsters in my org and even they are using these tools heavily now.
I build most of not all of my stuff for work, and I ain't sharing that.
It's no panacea, but is there something to be had there? Abso-fucking-lutley. All of this would have been complete scifi at the beginning of this decade.
I’m super pro AI. I’ve been using ChatGPT since the day it released. I use an agent coder at work semi-regularly to reasonable levels of success. Big fan.
But I am exceedingly tired of phrases like “complete the work of weeks and months within days”. If AI is making devs 5x to 10x faster then I’d like to see some actual results. Internet is full of hypesters that make bombastic claims of productivity but never actually shown anything they’ve made.
100%!
Not the OP but this is smth I've vibecoded using cursor: https://bestphoto.ai/ MRR ~$150. It basically started as a clone of my other site: https://aieasypic.com (MRR 2.5k, 5-8k/mo rev) since I was having trouble keeping code context in mind and claude was pretty bad at doing full features with the tech stack I used for that site(Django BE, NextJS FE) making adding new features a pain, so I completely switched to a stack that claude is very good at NextJS fullstack(trpc BE) and now it can basically one-shot a feature request.
Just putting this here because a lot of times AI coding seems to be dismissed as smth that can't do actual work ie generate revenue, while its more like making money as a solo dev is already pretty rare and if you're working in a corp. instead you're not going to just post your company name when asked for examples on what you're using AI for.
Those are exactly the kind of AI slop products I would expect to be vibe coded. You've created yet another wrapper around LLM APIs where the business model is charging a premium over existing services. Your revenue depends on the ignorance of customers to not realize they can get the same or better service for cheaper from companies that actually do the hard work. I bet SEO hacking is really important to you.
It's irrefutable that AI tools can be used to create software that generates revenue. What's more difficult is using them to create something that brings actual value into the world.
5 replies →
I love examples like these. I eventually want to start a bunch of these too.
thanks for sharing.
The other day someone was gloating they'd created a 30k LoC code base in a few weeks with a similar setup.
I'd consider that a liability, not an asset, but they were pretty happy with it.
It does exude a strong scent of astroturfing.
That's not always the case.
AI is often used to pump out sites and apps that scam users, SEO spam, etc. So there is definitely a revenue stream that makes scammers and grifters excited for AI. These tools have increased the scope and reach of their scams, and provide a huge boost to their productivity.
That's partly why I'm curious about OP's work. Nobody who's using these tools while following best software engineering practices would claim that they're making them that much more productive. Reviewing the generated code and fixing issues counteracts whatever time is saved by generating code. But if they're vibe coding and don't even look at the code...