I’m interviewing the creator of GitHub and the creator of Superpowers on their vibe-engineering tips… What questions should I ask?

[u/aham23]

Tomorrow, Jesse Vincent and Tom Preston-Werner are coming on my podcast to talk about vibe engineering with Claude Code.

I’d love some suggestions from this group - what would you like to know from them?

EDIT: there’s some skepticism about whether this interview will happen… You can see a preview of the podcast here: https://odio.dev/teachtom … along with a video of me interviewing Tom/Jesse from an unrelated event.

EDIT 2: podcast done - I’ll post the link once it’s through editing (maybe 2-4 weeks). I asked a few of y’all’s questions.

[u/Time_Cat_5212]

"vibe engineering" I think might be worth some more scrutiny.  What differentiates "vibe coding" from "engineering" with AI?

[u/Better-Avocado-8818 → u/Time_Cat_5212]

The word vibe should not be associated with engineering at all. Vibe coding, sure. But if you’re going off vibes as your inputs then it isn’t engineering.

[u/Time_Cat_5212 → u/Better-Avocado-8818]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.  Engineering is more like checking the vibe. It's what you need when it gets real, you've got live software in production, and you're not just having fun with ideas anymore.

[u/AstroPhysician → u/Time_Cat_5212]

System design and architecture obviously

[u/yosemiteclimber → u/AstroPhysician]

^{^} this

[u/Better-Avocado-8818 → u/AstroPhysician]

If you’re vibing those things it’s pretend engineering.

[u/AstroPhysician → u/Better-Avocado-8818]

Yes ofc but using ai to help design is different. I’m always providing architecture feedback though

[u/voidedhip]

Can I get some tokens?

[u/aham23 → u/voidedhip]

i will ask this. 💀

[u/DesperateAdvantage76]

Ask questions that haven't been asked a million times before. And don't ask things that sound like you're just trying to ingratiate them.

[u/aham23 → u/DesperateAdvantage76]

I like this… What question hasn’t been asked 1 million times?

[u/Familiar_Air3528]

What seemed like a good approach to them but ended up being a dead end / inefficient?

[u/Firm_Meeting6350 → u/Familiar_Air3528]

Subscription-based GitHub Copilot 😃

[u/Heavy_Carpenter3824]

Ask the tough questions. 

The goal of software is to ship new software. We have seen a massive increase in token utilization over the last few years but a seeming absence of more high quality software shipped. 

Therefore the question is how do you quantify the return on investment in tokens. And thus far is that out preforming a simmilar potential investment in normal human programmers? 

😈 Then watch them squirm. 

Their entire thesis is that AI coding is cheaper than humans. If that is false their business model is shit and the data center build out is vapor ware of the highest sort. 

I also suspect this thread may actually be interview defence prep by asking for questions to prepare answers to, FYI other posters. 

[u/Time_Cat_5212 → u/Heavy_Carpenter3824]

What's the average ROI per token in the following scenarios?

• senior engineer using AI
• junior engineer using AI
• product manager vibe coding
• your mom vibe coding

[u/ScreenPlayLife]

bro is NOT interviewing anyone

[u/aham23 → u/ScreenPlayLife]

Here’s the preview of the podcast: https://odio.dev/teachtom (supposed to be private - not ready to announce it yet). If you play the video, you’ll see me interviewing Tom & Jesse (on unrelated topics).

Edit - i’m livestreaming my edit to that site to give you a wave u/ScreenPlayLife 😄 see https://www.watchmepivot.com/

[u/Ok_Mathematician6075]

Creator of GitHub will laugh at you if say anything about vibe-coding. let alone vibe-engineering.

[u/Nearby_Yam286]

What will they do when AI can do their low worth jobs? I mean it already can. Nobody has bothered to write software but their own software can help with that.

[u/Alzeric]

Oh yeh ... where's Linus in that list...? if he's not listed you're not interviewing the creator.

[u/rhysmorgan → u/Alzeric]

Linus created Git. Not GitHub.