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My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

ddmckinnon.com

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Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#121

Post by titanomachy »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #113
badgersnake wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the rota is large enough that it will likely be somebody else’s problem anyway and the chances are even if it does land on them they just won’t answer the phone. Punishing mistakes with unpaid overtime has never been a good approach to quality. It just teaches management that they can get away with low quality because the engineers will pick up the pieces in their own time.

> unpaid overtime Through European lenses this part seems insane. It is work, so pay me for it :) Every oncall rotation I was part of ever was paid, is the "unpaid" part a US thing, or was I just lucky?

Working as a SWE at Meta in the US pays 3-5x more than a European tech job (outside of Switzerland). They are paid for it.

Paid oncall in US big tech is the exception rather than the norm (notably, Google has paid oncall)

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#123

Post by closewith »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #113
badgersnake wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the rota is large enough that it will likely be somebody else’s problem anyway and the chances are even if it does land on them they just won’t answer the phone. Punishing mistakes with unpaid overtime has never been a good approach to quality. It just teaches management that they can get away with low quality because the engineers will pick up the pieces in their own time.

> unpaid overtime Through European lenses this part seems insane. It is work, so pay me for it :) Every oncall rotation I was part of ever was paid, is the "unpaid" part a US thing, or was I just lucky?

Unpaid overtime is common across the continent for salaried positions. There's only a handful of jurisdictions where it's not the norm.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#124

Post by intelVISA »

Bridged7756 wrote: post #33

Our job is done for. We will be shown the door, and everyone will rejoice. Everyone will live in a happy world where you'll doddle a house and Claude will build you a next generation SaaS that makes you millions. Managers will do the job of engineers, by just telling LLMs to make an app or to make money or something. C-suites will have agents doing the jobs of managers, and CEOs will run entire companies with a Claud…

I appreciate this is satire, or marketing, but I'll engage: in this scenario how is the SaaS generating millions if anyone can just prompt their own?

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#125

Post by nananana9 »

akshay2603 wrote: post #120

I am one of those PMs at a big tech that just shipped a PR in prod: My take: 1. Doing this moves my team faster. I now use sourcegraph MCP all the time to file much better bugs. And when the actual bug fixing TAT is larger than bug filing TAT, I rather just do it myself. My engineers appreciate it, truly. 2. This not only helps me do bug filing but just get comfortable with code. And this improves my PRDs, my MVPs an…

If you can't read code and don't understand the codebase, you have no business anywhere near a text editor.

I work with a PM that's also learning to program. I assume just like you, they probably feel they'll otherwise will be pushed out. While it's far from the most productive thing I could be doing, I'm always happy to answer questions from a beginner programmer, or walk them through how something works, or how it should work but doesn't, help them debug it, etc.

Even though they're more or less ripping off the company, and are being paid a six-digit salary to be an intern programmer, I have infinitely more respect for them, as they're actually putting a good effort into learning the craft, and they're honest about what they're doing.

You can argue all you want that throwing vibe-coded PRs at your team improves your MVPs, PDRs, AVBs, DRTs, SVGs, BMPs or whatever un-measurable metrics you come up with, the reality is you're creating more work for everybody.

It takes a great amount of hubris to believe that although you may be unable to read code, surely your understanding for the product will lead to a diff that's an overall net positive. Your team will pat you on the back and then quietly clean up your mess.

If you want to program; great; learn the craft like the rest of us did. I'm sure you'll find many people happy to share knowledge and help you along if you put in an earnest effort.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#126

Post by intelVISA »

ef2k wrote: post #14

My hot take: the dedicated PM role is becoming optional. Engineers already understand feasibility and tradeoffs, and they often end up informing the PM anyway, which usually comes at the cost of meetings and slow decisions. With clear quarterly goals, engineering and design can own product together. They would shape scope, ship in increments, measure, and iterate. So the "product" function still exists, but its not a…

Agreed though I'm biased.

It will be interesting as orgs flatten to see what will keep all the remaining "superhuman AI-powered all-in-one" employees from just making their own shop.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#127

Post by gzread »

titanomachy wrote: post #121
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unpaid overtime Through European lenses this part seems insane. It is work, so pay me for it :) Every oncall rotation I was part of ever was paid, is the "unpaid" part a US thing, or was I just lucky?

Working as a SWE at Meta in the US pays 3-5x more than a European tech job (outside of Switzerland). They are paid for it. Paid oncall in US big tech is the exception rather than the norm (notably, Google has paid oncall)

How does it work out with cost of living?

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#128

Post by elif »

Agree with this take for the most part. Vibe coding is bad enough with an engineer in charge. Without a computer science background or engineering experience it's way too easy to go off the rails.

The exception would obviously be all the skilled coders who got turned into PM's over the years due to bad salary/title structures or poor organization structure.

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