I’ve been thinking a lot about this new wave of “vibe coding,” especially with how often people say you don’t need school, you don’t need fundamentals, and you can just build with AI and figure it out as you go.
There is some truth in that. But I think there’s also a correction that needs to be said out loud.
From my perspective, having gone through school and having interviewed a lot of engineers, what we’re seeing right now is a mix of real progress and a lot of shallow builds.
A lot of what’s being created today is essentially wrappers. People are taking tools like Cursor, layering something thin on top, and shipping it. That’s not necessarily bad. It is actually a great way to learn. But most of these projects do not go very far. There is not enough depth behind them to hold up over time.
And when I say that, I know some people hear elitism. Like this is coming from a place of “I have a CS degree, so I’m better.” That is not it.
I have worked with plenty of engineers who did not have computer science degrees. Some of the best people I have met did not. A few did not even have degrees at all, and they were exceptional, honestly on par with people who had PhDs and years of experience.
But here is the part that matters.
- Those people are rare
- They are deeply curious
- They study on their own
- They go way beyond surface-level understanding
They are not skipping fundamentals. They are recreating them on their own.
And that is where I think people misunderstand what is happening.
Over time, organizations learned patterns. When someone did not have a strong foundation, they often struggled in similar ways, especially in interviews. Things like walking through algorithms, explaining recursion clearly, or debugging something they did not write.
Not always, but often enough that it became a signal.
So interviews evolved around that. Not because companies want to gatekeep, but because they are trying to answer a simple question. Can this person think through problems they have not seen before?
To me, the real divide is not degrees. It is mindset.
You tend to see two groups. People who enjoy building, breaking things down, and understanding systems. And people who want the outcome, money or title, but are not that interested in the process.
That difference shows up fast. You cannot fake curiosity very long in this field.
There is also this idea that because a few people took unconventional paths, like Mark Zuckerberg, anyone can skip the fundamentals and still succeed. Those stories are real. But most people are not wired that way. Most people need structure, repetition, and time spent actually learning the basics, or they plateau.
The simplest way I think about it is this. Engineers like building things.
Like LEGO.
If you do not enjoy taking things apart, understanding how they work, and putting them back together better, you are going to struggle long term. AI does not change that. It just makes it easier to get started.
So my antidote thoughts are pretty simple.
- Use AI aggressively. It is a multiplier
- Do not skip fundamentals. They carry you when things break
- Build real things, not just wrappers
- Stay curious, or you will plateau
AI lowers the barrier to entry.
It does not lower the bar for excellence.
And right now, that gap is becoming very obvious.