I’m a developer who vibe codes – and you should, too

I’ve always loved coding, from the quiet flow and small wins to the feeling of seeing something come alive on the screen.

Yet as Melisearch grew and I fully stepped into my role as co-founder and CEO, those moments became rare. You know how it is: your days fill up with calls, emails, and strategy meetings. The deeper you get into running the company, the further you drift from the keyboard.

Then I discovered vibe coding, and for the first time in years, I felt like I had time to build again – quickly, playfully, almost effortlessly.

Essentially, you describe what you want in a prompt, using natural language, and an AI writes the code for you. You don’t analyze the code line by line. You just follow the flow. You chase the result. You chase the vibe.

Almost a year in, I can tell you this: vibe coding is addictive. It feels like magic, and it reignited the part of me that just loves to create.

It’s fast, thrilling, and yes, sometimes mentally draining, but in the way any great creative process can be.

Let me explain what I mean.

Why vibe coding feels so addictive

Vibe coding has a rhythm that pulls you in. The AI writes code faster than you can imagine, and you watch your ideas come to life almost instantly while barely lifting a finger.

It’s a kind of creative acceleration I’ve never experienced before. You get used to that pace, and it’s intoxicating.

Just one more prompt

It starts innocently enough. You write one prompt to create a new feature. You make a few tweaks to test an idea. Then, suddenly, you’re chasing “just one more prompt.”

The AI responds instantly, revealing things you might not have imagined yourself, sparking curiosity and adrenaline. It’s like gaming: one more level, one more round, one more challenge.

According to Lydia Chilton, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineering, as cited by Columbia AI, innovation starts with the ‘flare’ stage, where you brainstorm ideas and solutions. She notes that AI amplifies this stage by letting you explore more ideas, run more experiments, and design faster than ever before.

That’s why, for me, each new prompt is like a mini-reward that gives me a dopamine rush. It’s a sort of high that I can’t get enough of.

Speed feels like power

Traditional coding gives you natural pauses. Typing forces you to think, plan, and troubleshoot.

With vibe coding, the AI does the code writing, and your only job is to keep up. Every result appears row by row, and your brain races to process it, evaluate it, and type in the next prompt.

It’s a creative flow in its purest form, an exhilarating conversation between you and the machine.

I find myself doing it all the time: while drinking my morning coffee, during a break, or late at night when inspiration strikes.

Every prompt feeds the next. Every result creates a new possibility. The speed is empowering because it smooths things out between your thoughts and their realization.

The other side of vibe coding

Like any powerful tool, vibe coding requires a bit of balance. The rush can blur time, and when the session ends, your mind feels both satisfied and exhausted.

You might wake up the next day mentally drained, replaying the ideas you explored the night before.

For me, this is a sign of deep engagement, the same kind of creative fatigue that follows a productive all-night brainstorming session.

But not everyone agrees…

Your brain can have a hard time keeping up

The biggest challenge of vibe coding is keeping your head in the game. You’re jumping between ideas, testing, prompting, debugging, and the output never stops.

Researchers at MIT found that extensive reliance on AI for creative tasks can reduce deep focus and comprehension.

This makes sense because once you stop typing and start prompting, your brain is no longer engaged in the same way.

Every time you skip reading and analyzing the AI-generated code, you give up a little bit of understanding. Over time, those skipped moments add up, and you can lose touch with how the system really works.

As Andrej Karpathy, the computer scientist who introduced the concept of vibe coding, wrote in his now-famous post on X: “The code grows beyond my usual comprehension, I'd have to really read through it for a while.”

Still, vibe coding simply pushes you to think differently. As long as you stay curious and read what the AI produces, you can turn speed into skill.

Everything can start to sound the same

The code looks clean, the structure makes sense, but it feels too familiar. It reads like a snippet from a coding tutorial on YouTube or a GitHub repo you’ve never seen but somehow recognize.

That’s the thing with AI-generated code: it can sometimes feel like everyone’s work and no one’s in particular, at the same time. It can have the shape of expertise, but lack creativity, until you add yours back in.

According to Columbia AI, Lydia Chilton calls AI “reductive and fundamentally unoriginal” because it doesn’t know how to judge or refine what it generates.

This is where the human element comes in. Your quirks, your choices, your deviations from convention are what make the output yours.

When you bring your perspective into the loop, vibe coding stops being generic and starts being expressive and meaningful again.

Where this could lead

Vibe coding shows what happens when creativity meets automation head-on. The line between thought and execution is gone.

It’s a new kind of craftsmanship and it’s extraordinary!

Those long hours of debugging that used to build patience and precision can now be invested in design thinking, experimentation, or storytelling.

Even if the work changes its shape, your spirit can remain the same.

Two directions

We can already see two paths forming:

• Some developers dive headfirst into the fast, freeform rhythm of vibe coding.
• Others prefer what Simon Willison calls ‘vibe engineering,’ where AI tools improve your work but never replace your judgment.

Both approaches work as long as you know when to let the AI lead and when to step in.

Vibe coding can make you feel like the ideas are racing ahead of you, but that’s part of its magic. The real skill is deciding which ideas are worth pursuing.

You choose the problems that matter, the features that add value, and the solutions that feel right. Let AI handle the repetitive work while you focus on creativity, purpose, and direction.

The bottom line

Vibe coding is a reminder that AI tools can speed up work and reignite curiosity.

Every morning when I open my laptop, I feel the same spark that got me into coding in the first place.

I prompt, I explore, I build, and it’s thrilling, but I still need to remind myself every once in a while to slow down and stay grounded.

If AI makes coding feel like a game, then the real skill now is learning to play it well.

Have you felt that pull too?

If you’ve found yourself chasing just one more prompt or losing track of time while coding with AI, I’d love to hear about it. How has vibe coding changed the way you create?