Tech companies have a new hiring requirement: vibe coding
Looking for a tech job? Being good at vibe coding could help.
Vibe coding is the art of using AI to generate code. It's the latest trend taking over Silicon Valley, and CTOs are taking notice.
Business Insider found job listings from Visa, Reddit, DoorDash, and a host of others that explicitly require vibe coding experience or familiarity with AI code generators like Cursor and Bolt.
One startup even called vibe coding a "non-negotiable" skill and required anyone hired to the position to generate at least half of their current code with AI.
The listings make clear that companies want to hire these vibe coders to boost the speed at which they build their products, or what's known as "velocity" in the tech industry.
Big Tech is getting in on the action too, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying he's had a "delightful" time vibe coding up a webpage and Amazon in talks to deploy Cursor. (Business Insider couldn't find any " Magnificent Seven" firms asking for vibe coding experience in their job ads, though.)
While vibe coding gains traction, it's not close to replacing senior engineers just yet. Engineers tell BI that the practice remains mostly useful for spending less time on basic tasks.
Vibe coding is now "essential"
Visa posted three generative AI engineer positions last month for its Austin office that lists familiarity with vibe coding tools as "essential."
Reddit, meanwhile, seeks an engineer who can build and maintain integrations with AI coding tools including Cursor and Bolt. Reddit wants this engineer to engage directly with the broader vibe-coding community to gather feedback and "drive adoption."
DoorDash seeks an engineer familiar with those tools, too, while cybersecurity unicorn Snyk wants to hire someone with "deep expertise" in vibe coding.
The most extreme embrace of vibe coding may come from Y Combinator startup Domu Technology, which called"vibe coding experience" a "non-negotiable." The listing said that at least half of this person's code should already be written by AI.
It's all about speed
There's a common thread across these listings: speed. Most mention that the company seeks people with vibe coding knowledge so its engineering teams can ship products out faster.
That's why vibe coding is kicking off in the first place: to turbocharge engineering teams.
For example, streaming service Tubi wants an engineer to integrate AI-powered coding tools into the daily workflow to "boost velocity." And Udacity wants to "accelerate" product development by hiring someone familiar with Cursor and Anthropic's AI assistant, Claude Code.
The Visa positions that mention vibe coding also specify that it's for the "rapid" generation of code and prototypes at the company.
Alex Balazs, CTO of Intuit, told BI he's approved six to seven different AI coding tools at Intuit including Cursor, Windsurf, and Microsoft Copilot — and he has no regrets.
"Right now, we're seeing that a great engineer using one of these tools can be up to 40% faster in terms of coding," Balazs said.
Balazs added that while Intuit doesn't specifically seek out vibe coders in its hiring, it does appreciate people who "love leveraging AI" to solve problems.
AI isn't taking over just yet
That's not to say someone with no coding experience armed with a $20-a-month Cursor subscription can waltz into a senior software engineer job.
Vibe coding is relevant for companies largely because it helps existing engineers spend less time on "boilerplate code" and focus on higher-end problems instead, Balazs said.
Even the most advanced vibe coding tools aren't so useful for tasks like shipping production-ready code or diving deep into a company's core systems, said Mohammad Sanatkar, a former senior machine learning engineer at Waymo who now runs an AI agents startup called SelfMachines in San Francisco.
He said these tools tend to work better for simpler tasks, like building a website's front page.
"A few weeks ago, I used Cursor for a landing page, and it was pretty good at it," he said. "But I don't think they are skilled enough to do core software improvements."
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