Vibe coding hits different when you know the codebase
Coding agents lower the barrier to writing software. That part is real. But there is a growing gap between what you can do with an agent when you understand the codebase and what you can do when you don’t.
Sean Goedecke wrote about this directly: if you have a solid theory of how your code is structured, you can push an LLM much harder. You can tell it the solution is probably simpler, point out that the codebase already handles something similar, or reframe the problem in terms the model can work with more precisely. Without that foundation, you’re mostly accepting whatever the agent produces.
Matt Birchler, commenting on Goedecke’s piece, put it plainly: interacting with these models when you have no idea how the code works and when you do know are completely different experiences.
Who benefits most from coding agents
Birchler’s take is that the biggest winners will be people who combine three things: technical understanding, a good design eye, and strong product intuition backed by research. Not pure coders. Not pure product people. The overlap between all three.
That framing matters for how you think about hiring, skilling up, or where to invest your own learning time. The agent handles more of the mechanical output. The human judgment about what to build, how it should behave, and whether the solution actually fits the problem becomes the differentiating layer.
I’m founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.
With over 14 years in tech, marketing, and AI, including my role as Head of SEO at CitizenShipper and co-founder of TaleBot at Intale AI, I’m dedicated to sharing genuine, useful product insights and tips.
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