Alexey Krivitsky

Alexey Krivitsky

Agentic EngineeringOrg Consulting10X Org

Vibing or AI Engineering? A Spectrum for Personal Growth

Alexey Krivitsky3 min read
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TL;DR:Vibing feels like a slot machine — drop a prompt and hope. But it's a spectrum, not two camps. Used right, AI isn't a slot machine but a gym with a coach.

Two ways to use the same AI — a neon Vibing slot machine on the left, and a home gym with Claude on a screen and a Better Than Yesterday wall on the right.

There seem to be two camps. On one side, vibing: you treat the AI like a slot machine. Drop a coin — a prompt — pull the lever, and hope for magic. Sometimes the cherries line up; often they don't, so you feed it another coin.

On the other side, agentic engineering as a serious craft: design, guardrails, lifecycles, tests — things you can maintain and extend.

Most people read these as opposites. Black or white. You're either gambling or engineering.

I prefer to think of it as a spectrum. You can sit closer to either end, and the right place depends on the task — its complexity, and the maintainability and extensibility you actually want. A throwaway script and a system you'll live with for years don't deserve the same spot on the line.

And here's the part I find exciting and human-centric: even if you start by vibing (which I often do), you can ask the AI to explain what it just generated. Name its assumptions. Explain the technology. Drill deeper into the terms you don't know. Prompt it to sketch you a diagram.

So the random process of finding luck turns into an intentional learning process. And each prompt is now a step toward engineering.

So maybe that "spectrum from vibing to engineering" is just another word for depth of skill. And skill isn't binary — it's something we grow over time. Which flips the metaphor on its head. Used this way, the AI isn't a slot machine at all. It's a training machine — a gym.

So perhaps the real question isn't where you are on the spectrum at the very start, but whether you're using the machine to gamble, hoping for a sudden breakthrough — or to grow strength one step at a time. And to build on the sport metaphor: AI can be a great coach with infinite patience.

Alexey Krivitsky is co-author of 10X ORG and co-creator of Org Topologies, a framework for organizational design in the age of AI.