Engineering as a Service Is What Happens When You Let Vibe Coding Win
The term itself — coined by Andrej Karpathy in early 2025 — describes writing software by describing what you want and iterating on AI output until it looks right.
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The term itself — coined by Andrej Karpathy in early 2025 — describes writing software by describing what you want and iterating on AI output until it looks right.
When GitHub Copilot launched in 2021, the narrative was "AI as pair programmer." When ChatGPT arrived, it shifted to "AI as junior developer." By the time Cursor and Windsurf and Devin entered the picture,...
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The useful part
The term itself — coined by Andrej Karpathy in early 2025 — describes writing software by describing what you want and iterating on AI output until it looks right. It's an organizational event dressed up as one. When GitHub Copilot launched in 2021, the narrative was "AI as pair programmer." When ChatGPT arrived, it shifted to "AI as junior developer." By the time Cursor and Windsurf and Devin entered the picture, the goalposts had moved so far that we stopped noticing where they used to be.
Details worth keeping
It's an organizational event dressed up as one. When GitHub Copilot launched in 2021, the narrative was "AI as pair programmer." When ChatGPT arrived, it shifted to "AI as junior developer." By the time Cursor and Windsurf and Devin entered the picture, the goalposts had moved so far that we stopped noticing where they used to be.
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