A lot of people are condemning vibe coding and AI-assisted projects. Most of them are traditional engineers who know the nitty-gritty of software development, and they probably feel like the craft of coding is being tainted by people who don’t know what they’re doing and are just chatting with an agent.
To be fair, they have valid reasons, especially when it comes to security. Someone without a foundation in how systems work, how servers communicate, and how data travels across networks and the internet will probably end up relying on their friendly AI agent to make the right call. The problem is that these agents tend to lean toward achieving “your goal” rather than making the right call on security or scalability.
But I don’t want to argue about whether everyone can become a developer, or whether coding is dead. What I want to write about is how engineers who have built a foundation they can rely on can now become the builders they always wanted to be. I can’t speak for everyone, but that has held true for me.
When I chose software engineering as a career, my main motivation was being able to build things. As a kid, I always loved creating things with boxes, LEGO-like blocks, or magnetic sticks. Back then I was probably closer to robotics than software, but I ended up fascinated by how computers work and how much you can do with them.
Then you grow up, spend years developing the skills and the foundation, get the job, and start building whatever someone else tells you to. I understand why a civil engineer wouldn’t build a second house as a pet project. That would be insanely expensive just for the sake of a hobby or a passion. But software engineers only need a laptop and the knowledge, and I’m pretty sure everyone with that title already has both.
And yet, you never build what you want to build. You don’t even take the time to think about what you’d want to build. You spend your career and your life building software for someone else, whether that’s your boss, your company, or your client.
But in the past year, I’ve felt a switch. I’ve been building the things I want. I may not be able to dedicate two or three hours a day to a pet project I have no intention of monetizing, but I can spend 15 or 30 minutes on it. That short amount of time, combined with the foundation and knowledge a good engineer already has, is more than enough to get the most out of AI agents.
I replaced both my time tracker and my task tracker with Super Productivity, an open-source task management app. I wrote a custom plugin to make it work the way I wanted, and built a desktop app with Tauri that pulls my Super Productivity data and displays it the way I like. I also built a very simple 2048 mobile game and added blocking tiles and power-ups.
Will I monetize any of those? No. Did I enjoy the process and the results? Absolutely.
So build the tools you pay a subscription for, and add your own twist and opinions. Not for the masses, not to make a profit (although you will save the subscription cost), but just for you, working the way you want it to.
And let’s be honest: with the reverse engineering skills that have been gaining traction lately, you could build it even faster. There’s an ethical discussion there that I won’t get into here. But even without them, I’m pretty sure you can build it.
AI may not be profitable in the way the big companies are trying to market it, but for software engineering, it has changed what a single engineer can build in their spare time. That’s just the reality.
I’m pretty sure most software engineers are builders at heart. At some point in your career, the drive to build your own things simply fades, and you end up building for others. That’s not necessarily bad. But if you really want to get back to building, to start acting on those “I wish this app had X” thoughts, then sit at your desk and build it. You’re living in an era where that’s possible (and considering most frontier labs are losing money, we don’t know how long this era will last).
So yeah, that’s it for today. Just a reminder: if you were a builder when you chose this career, you can still rekindle that fire and start building now.
Reverse Pitch is one post a week on software engineering and the career around it, written from inside the work.