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Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

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Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#21

Post by furyofantares »

georgemcbay wrote: post #12
cebert wrote: post #4

We won’t hire anybody moving forward who doesn’t have hands-on agentic programming experience. We’re in the traditionally slower moving GovTech space. I have to imagine this is now a common expectation in many sectors. Teams where I work can use Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot CLI. Internally, it seems like Claude Code and Codex are the more popular tools being used by most software teams. If you’re new to th…

> We won’t hire anybody moving forward who doesn’t have hands-on agentic programming experience. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me even as someone who uses agentic programming. I would understand not hiring people who are against the idea of agentic programming, but I'd take a skilled programmer (especially one who is good at code review and debugging) who never touched agentic/LLM programming (but knows they wi…

Yeah, will they take someone who has two months of hands-on with Claude Code, just not someone with zero? Come on, I'll take a great programmer with zero who knows they need to use it over a mediocre programmer who's been doing it since Claude Code released and I expect to be better off for doing so within 2 weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#23

Post by mcdeltat »

Depending on your standards, seems like a potential indicator of companies to avoid?

Personally I still believe that despite AI being moderately useful and getting better over time, it's mostly only feasible for boilerplate work. I do wonder about these people claiming to produce millions of lines of code per day with AI, like what are you actually building? If it's then Nth CRUD app then yeah, I see why... Chances are in the grand scheme of things, we don't really need that company to exist.

In roles that require more technical/novel work, AI just doesn't make the cut in my experience. Either it totally falls over or produces such bad results that it'd be quicker for a skilled dev to make it manually from scratch. I'd hope these types of companies are not hiring based on AI usage.

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#24

Post by tehlike »

sph wrote: post #22

Jesus Christ. Imagine reading these comments even just a year ago. Don’t know/care about coding with AI? You’re unhireable now. Grim.

It's not a skill. Seriously. It's pretty simple to get started, just open codex/claude, and give it a shot.

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#25

Post by tehlike »

bitwize wrote: post #20

Agentic AI-assisted coding is an intrinsic part of the job now. Companies would be leaving lots of money on the table if they didn't take advantage of the 10x/50x/100x productivity gains. If you don't have the skills, learn. Shape up or ship out.

There's no 100x productivity gain. No company shipped their products 100x faster except their very first versions.

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#26

Post by peacebeard »

mcdeltat wrote: post #23

Depending on your standards, seems like a potential indicator of companies to avoid? Personally I still believe that despite AI being moderately useful and getting better over time, it's mostly only feasible for boilerplate work. I do wonder about these people claiming to produce millions of lines of code per day with AI, like what are you actually building? If it's then Nth CRUD app then yeah, I see why... Chances a…

When doing more technical / novel work you can’y vibe code it but you can still use ai tools to make things faster. Having Claude implement small chunks with strict direction and oversight is underrated in my opinion. Or just using it to search the codebase (where is the code that does x), implement tests, and do code review are all helpful. There is a lot of e-peen measuring around vibe coding but I think it’s really not the must useful workflow, it’s just chasing a dream.

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#27

Post by Arainach »

fatih-erikli-cg wrote: post #17

I think recruiters would like to see what candidates will do when get some free time. It is not really a lifestyle. It is a short amount of time. Maybe couple of weekends, before they get some other work or get laid off. E.g., Nobody wants to continue working with someone who create sound effects, movie player, operating system, etc.

> E.g., Nobody wants to continue working with someone who create sound effects, movie player, operating system, etc.

What do you mean by this?

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#28

Post by dasil003 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #12
cebert wrote: post #4

We won’t hire anybody moving forward who doesn’t have hands-on agentic programming experience. We’re in the traditionally slower moving GovTech space. I have to imagine this is now a common expectation in many sectors. Teams where I work can use Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot CLI. Internally, it seems like Claude Code and Codex are the more popular tools being used by most software teams. If you’re new to th…

> We won’t hire anybody moving forward who doesn’t have hands-on agentic programming experience. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me even as someone who uses agentic programming. I would understand not hiring people who are against the idea of agentic programming, but I'd take a skilled programmer (especially one who is good at code review and debugging) who never touched agentic/LLM programming (but knows they wi…

I suspect it’s not about agentic coding being a special skill, and more about why a competent programmer wouldn’t have tried it by this point, and whether that is a sign of ideological objections that could cause friction with the team. Not saying I agree with that thinking, but I definitely see why a hiring manager could think that way.

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#29

Post by bitwize »

tehlike wrote: post #25
bitwize wrote: post #20

Agentic AI-assisted coding is an intrinsic part of the job now. Companies would be leaving lots of money on the table if they didn't take advantage of the 10x/50x/100x productivity gains. If you don't have the skills, learn. Shape up or ship out.

There's no 100x productivity gain. No company shipped their products 100x faster except their very first versions.

It depends on the task. There are certain tasks which are too tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone to be valuable for humans to perform, and couldn't be automated effectively until LLMs came along. Eric Raymond has cited a shortening of some tasks from weeks to hours. Andreas Kling managed to lift the JS runtime for his browser Ladybird to Rust from C++ in a couple of weeks, some 25,000 lines of code.

The productivity gains are real, and in some cases they are enormous. It is actively, profoundly stupid to pass on them. You need to learn how to work with AI.

Re: Ask HN: Is vibe coding a new mandatory job requirement?

#30

Post by bitwize »

dasil003 wrote: post #28
georgemcbay wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We won’t hire anybody moving forward who doesn’t have hands-on agentic programming experience. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me even as someone who uses agentic programming. I would understand not hiring people who are against the idea of agentic programming, but I'd take a skilled programmer (especially one who is good at code review and debugging) who never touched agentic/LLM programming (but knows they wi…

I suspect it’s not about agentic coding being a special skill, and more about why a competent programmer wouldn’t have tried it by this point, and whether that is a sign of ideological objections that could cause friction with the team. Not saying I agree with that thinking, but I definitely see why a hiring manager could think that way.

If you aren't taking advantage of it, you are not a competent software engineer in 2026.
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