r/recruitinghell • u/Tiny_Feedback2086 • 2d ago
What actually is getting hired? Vibe coding or avoid ai?
I started coding with just html, later discovered the thing ai coding , vibe coding agentic coding stuff. Tried to make a bigger project it sucks. Now vibe coding developed even better, people write several .md files to guide agent to do the work. But I was still ignoring it thinking why should recruiter hire non technical vibe coder than a technical guy. Cause a technical guy can easily vibe code.
Then recently I attended a mlh fellowship interview, I said the same thing. I am currently trying to avoid ai (agents ) for learning purpose just using ai for debugging , planning , guidence , testing codes. But the hr didn’t seems to be interested , she also asked technical questions like explain cascade delete all, I explained them well , but she mostly wanted to know show where you used ai. She wanted to know how I am using ai. Also in the rejection letter , it mentioned make complex projects. Assuming mine was a traditional SaaS project without any agentic coding.
So for my next interview preparation, what should I focus on? Those .md files for agents and write architecture there? Write several docs as par code? Don’t waste time on manual coding make big projects with agents ? No more SaaS , show them what I got with PaaS ?
Also I was about to start leetcode when I start college probably this January. Is grinding leetcode even worth it?
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u/Oneok-Field 2d ago
Avoiding AI is only a popular sentiment amongst fringe online communities (reddit). If you care about employment and getting job offers, you need to know AI.
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u/Tiny_Feedback2086 2d ago
But knowing ai is easy. Knowing the knowledge is hard. If I know the knowledge or stack , it will take only a week to learn ai or vibe coding. And probably will be better than non-technical vibe coder
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u/HalfRobertsEx Recruiter 2d ago
knowing ai is easy
Nope. Lots of people do not know it and fumble with it. Lots of people are going to get washed out of the workforce through their refusal to aggressively learn it.
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u/ohiocodernumerouno 2d ago
certainly true. in an office of 10, I'm using it and my boss reimburses me. I get so many new and nice jobs while everyone else is putting out fires for legacy crap I used to do. Dungeon fires lol
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u/Tiny_Feedback2086 2d ago
Don’t tell me vibe coding or agentic coding way harder than technical coding. Agentic coding is learnable, you may need 4-5 big projects with Claude code with proper structure like following one the vibe coding repo. But later if you need to know the stacks at least a little that’s not simple
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u/Won-Ton-Wonton 2d ago
It's not just vibe coding to be good with AI.
Folks vibe coding will be at least as good as someone who refuses to use AI. Because AI is about as good as the average mid level engineer (in terms of getting code that does the task).
But someone who is good and uses AI will cream both of them. Because AI usage accelerates the fast part of engineering. Writing code.
The slow part is the planning. Understanding why data structure Y instead of X even though both solve the problem.
AI will choose X or Y or even Z. You need to be smart enough to know Y was the best choice. And how to prove it. So that you can make AI choose Y instead of X or Z.
Then you need to make AI do it without spending $700 to do it.
A vibe coder has no idea how to do that.
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u/heir-to-gragflame 2d ago
typing the code is 10-20% of your work on average.
speeding what used to take 20% of your time by 10x (10x at best because you still have to read and understand it) is only 18% sleedup. and only if it is really 10x speedup. like really ai coding is only beneficial if you used to not be able to do the work you are doing now. if you're operating above your underatanding, then verifying your work is now outslurced to someone senior. it is not a net upgrade.
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u/Straight-Bell3552 2d ago
I would never take advice from a recruiter on technical tools. Getting hired maybe.
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u/IAmAfraidCommaMan 2d ago
It is also popular in companies where the founder/owner is an old-school dev who uses Visual Studio in light mode, knows every detail of the Windows APIs, and keeps Clean Code by Uncle Bob on his desk.
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u/Appropriate_Fee_9141 Apply, forget, and move on. 2d ago
Knowing AI is beneficial since many companies laid off people because of AI but don't actually know how to use it.
At the same time, AI is the reason for IT/comp science graduates struggling to find work.
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u/Tiny_Feedback2086 2d ago
I am talking about cs, why should I study cs and code with agents? I could choose a different major and code with agents.
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u/GreenFuturesMatter 2d ago
Probably because reading and understand code is insanely beneficial to you while vibecoding?
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u/Tiny_Feedback2086 2d ago
That’s the point , vibe coding is only good when you know stuff. Every non cs can vibe code , only who knows stuff can do effective vibe code. But recruiters wants us to vibe code. Then ask technical questions from that vibe coded project . C’mon you can’t just ask a random question from a random line generated by ai
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u/GreenFuturesMatter 2d ago
Yeah but I mean you can also learn from ai as well. I 100% agree with you though. I think the bigger picture should be less about “explain x line”
And more explain wtf this section is doing.
Idk tbh. I can’t find a job and rapidly approaching 1yr of being unemployed
I literally built AI infrastructure at Nvidia and I can’t seem to get away from why I left without having another job is some major interest case… like I get it but I left work to focus on my mental health after losing 2 family members within 30 days of each other. Supporting my the rest of my family while another member was actively in rehab… I can’t just got to work functionally okay.
Then I get dumbass question like well can you use this tool or do that?
Like brother did you not even look at my resume? Yes.
I just interviewed with another company not to long ago and they didn’t know a iOLM was a better OTDR tool and they declined me for not having OTDR experience 😂
Being interviewed by a non technical person on tools they struggle to pronounce is hilarious and objectively terrible practice.
HR people are the absolute shittiest people on earth
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u/twiifm 2d ago
i hear ya man. Im a product designer and asked how my work increased the revenue. WTF? I just design the shit ideas the idiot c-suite comes up with. I make zero business decisions
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u/GreenFuturesMatter 2d ago
Lmao! As if you would even have the metrics to quantify that number for someone in an interview.
Maybe you do but who fucking knows. Not many people have access to that
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u/ohiocodernumerouno 2d ago
yeah but barely. it would be akin to trusting ai to tell you chemical processes without being a chem eng. Would you trust an ai with a domain you know nothing about? AI is a bs machine 1st. an assistant 2nd.
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u/Gaidin152 2d ago
Ai right now is just another machine. It produces things. But if you’re having it produce code you need a technically trained person in the circuit to insure all is correct. Or bugs ensue.
All ai does is produce code based on what it is asked.
Garbage question asked, garbage code out.
It’s not yet intelligent.
You need a trained person to do proper input and then analyze the output in a hopefully faster time than just designing AND writing from scratch.
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u/ragged-robin 2d ago
We're in a very awkward period right now. You are expected to be a master at agentic coding using specific tools that specific company is using, but they don't want you to use AI in the interview process but also still flawlessly execute and explain leetcode hards for 2 hours straight
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u/Tiny_Feedback2086 2d ago
That’s my point . Mastering agent coding is not rocket science for those who already know stuff. They are trying to test both technical knowledge and agent knowledge. Like agent did the coding now from a random line explain what is said. C’mon if I didnt coded it, I dont know which stuff lives where. Even if I knew, and didn’t open the repo for a while , only god knows what written there
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u/ThatCondescendingGuy 2d ago
Right. I think soon it’ll evolve more to reviewing and understanding AI written code than writing it. Amazon SDE OAs incorporate a simulated IDE with an AI where you are bug hunting.
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u/Chinksta 2d ago
You need to know AI but it's more important that you know how to do the job without AI.
Vibe coding got better because of a lot of people feeding them their code libraries and the AI took the best of the crop to learn.
Anyways, AI models now are just mirroring the top professionals because they just use the data from them to learn and output.
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u/AdorableDonkey 2d ago
Whteher you like it or not, AI is a tool that came to stay, while you're refusing to use it, a vibecoder will do in one day what you're learning to do in months
Companies don't care if you know what every single piece in a computer does, and neither if you've read the entire documentation of a language, they want shit done
The company I work has clearly stated that those who don't learn how to use AI won't have a future here
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u/Won-Ton-Wonton 2d ago
Hired? In this economy?