The rise of the professional vibe coder (a new AI-era job) | Lazar Jovanovic (Professional Vibe Coder)

Feb 8, 2026 1h 42m 20 insights Episode Page ↗
Lazar Yovanovich, Lovable's first Vibe Coding Engineer, discusses his dream job of building internal and external products using AI. He shares elite tips for leveraging AI tools, emphasizing clarity, judgment, and a unique workflow of parallel prototyping and structured documentation to achieve world-class results. The conversation also explores the future of tech roles and essential human skills in an AI-driven world.
Actionable Insights

1. Embrace Positive Delusion with AI

Approach AI tools with the mindset that absolutely everything is possible until proven wrong, as this positive delusion helps push boundaries and discover innovative solutions.

2. Optimize for Clarity, Not Speed

Dedicate 80% of your time to planning and chatting with AI, and only 20% to execution, because AI amplifies your input, making clarity and good judgment the most critical skills.

3. Develop Good Judgment and Taste

Cultivate good judgment, taste, and an understanding of ‘world-class’ quality through deliberate exposure to excellent content and designs, as AI will produce garbage faster if your input lacks these qualities.

4. Treat AI as Technical Co-founder

Engage with AI tools as if they are technical co-founders or educators, learning by building and religiously reading the AI agent’s conversational output (not just the code) to understand its reasoning and improve your steering.

5. Understand AI’s Limited Context

Recognize that AI has a limited ‘context memory window’ (like a genie’s three wishes); manage your requests by being specific and providing perpetual context to ensure it doesn’t lose track of the project’s scope.

6. Build Multiple Parallel Prototypes

When starting a project, initiate 3-5 parallel builds by brain-dumping, typing clearer prompts, finding mock designs (e.g., Mobbin, Dribbble), and attaching code snippets to quickly clarify your vision and compare concepts.

7. Provide Code Snippets for Precision

For pixel-perfect or exact functional results, provide AI tools with actual code snippets (HTML, CSS, etc.) rather than just English descriptions, as they interpret code best for precise outputs.

8. Create Comprehensive Project Documentation

Provide AI with perpetual context by creating and regularly updating structured documentation, including a master_plan.md, implementation_plan.md, design_guidelines.md, and user_journeys.md, to ensure consistent understanding throughout the project.

9. Use a ‘Tasks’ Document

Generate a tasks.md file in markdown format that breaks down the project into actual tasks and subtasks, which the AI will use as a source of truth for sequential execution, allowing you to simply prompt ‘proceed with the next task.’

10. Define Agent Behavior with Rules

Utilize rules.md or project settings to instruct the AI on how to behave, what to prioritize (e.g., ‘read all files before acting’), and what to do upon completion (e.g., ’tell me what you did and how to test it’), eliminating repetitive prompting.

11. Leverage AI for Rapid Prototyping

Use AI tools to quickly build prototypes (e.g., in 30 minutes) instead of writing lengthy documents or holding meetings, effectively demonstrating your vision to engineers or stakeholders (the ‘Demo Don’t Memo’ approach).

12. Follow a 4-Step Debugging Framework

When blocked, first ask the tool to ’try to fix’ the issue, then add console logs for awareness, next use an external AI (like Codex) for diagnostics, and finally, revert to a previous version and rethink your prompt.

13. Learn from Debugging by Asking AI

After resolving a problem, ask the AI agent, ‘How can you help me learn how to prompt you better so that next time I have a problem, we do it in one go?’ to improve your future interactions and incorporate this learning into your rules.md.

14. Build in Public and Share

To professionally become a Vibe Coder, actively build projects in public, share your failures and knowledge on platforms like YouTube or LinkedIn, and give away secrets to attract opportunities and demonstrate your capabilities.

15. Hire Yourself as Vibe Coder

Don’t wait for a company to hire you; start acting as a professional Vibe Coder by building, sharing, and demonstrating your capabilities, as this self-driven approach often leads to professional roles.

16. Focus on Human-Centric Skills

Develop emotional intelligence, understanding of human nature, and real-life human-to-human interaction skills, as these are areas where AI struggles and will remain highly valuable in the future.

17. Master Design and Copywriting

Invest in developing truly great design skills (including images, fonts, and styles) and excellent copywriting, as AI-generated content will become easily identifiable, and authentic human creativity will be highly valued.

18. Don’t Fear AI; Start Building

Overcome any fear of AI by actively building things with it, as the direct experience of creation quickly transforms apprehension into excitement and reveals the vast possibilities.

19. Prioritize Learning Over Coding

Dedicate more time to learning (e.g., reading agent output, following great designers) than to the act of coding, because coding speed is commoditized, but the quality of your input and judgment determines the output’s value.

20. Disregard Tech Stack; Focus on Experience

Stop obsessing over specific tech stacks (HTML, React, backend, frontend) as they are increasingly irrelevant; instead, prioritize creating a stellar end-user experience, quality, taste, and design.