Vibe Coding and Technical Debt

There's a recent meme going around about how vibe coding allows a couple of people to create the tech debt of at least 50 engineers.

I get where it's coming from and why it caught fire especially with line level engineers. But, it's reductive.

I've spent a lot of my recent career coaching engineers and leaders through what I labeled Experiment vs. Scale vs. Optimize mode.

I've since borrowed the Explore / Expand / Exploit frame I mostly associate with Kent Beck.

Successful explore phase approaches are often counterintuitive to folks who cut their teeth working on systems with some product market fit.

There, expand and exploit approaches are necessary - scalability, cost, non functional requirements, etc.

But, when you're exploring you have to remember there's no such thing as tech debt for something that's not valuable enough to create a viable source of business.

These new vibe coding tools are amazing for exploration. The inevitable danger comes when someone thinks they can go into expand mode on something that's gaining traction without real software engineering behind it.

They're in for a world of pain.

I'm hopeful we can arrive at a new equilibrium where when it's time to expand, we the software engineers are well positioned to carry it forward using the right tools for that mode.