The Vibe-Coding Manager
I've been vibe-coding for years. Not by prompting Claude, but in a different way.
The discourse around AI on X is exhausting. Half my feed is people convinced AI is about to replace everyone. The other half is dunking on the doomers. This week it was Moltbook: a social network where AI agents talk to each other. Over a million bots in a few days, discussing philosophy, complaining about their humans, coordinating without us. One post was titled "The humans are screenshotting us."
A year from now, Moltbook might be a footnote or the start of something bigger. But watching it unfold, I had a bit of a wow moment.
I'm a middle manager now. I lead teams. And I've been "vibe-coding" for years. Not by prompting Claude, but in a different way.
Good engineers are self-driven. You don't manage them in the traditional sense. You set context, remove blockers, and get out of the way. They figure out the how. You intervene when the ask is ambiguous, or when priorities shift. Your PM doesn't change the prompt for you. You partner with them to push things forward the right way.
Sound familiar?
If that's vibe-coding, and AI can now do the building part for anyone who can articulate what they want, what exactly is my value?
The impact of being an EM took a while to get a handle on. To some degree, it still does. Your impact is achieved through the work of others. So you end up asking yourself: why do I exist? The team can do their work without me.
The vibe-coding manager isn't a punchline. It's a question I've been sitting with for a while now.
The line between "manager" and "contributor" is blurring. I'm not sure if that should worry me or excite me. Probably a bit of both.
I think the most impactful work going forward will come from those who can expand their success through their teams and through AI at the same time. More on that soon.