By Erick For context:
This does end with good advice about coding agents.
This isn’t a marketing claim or a tech demo. This is a reality check from someone working at one of the world’s most advanced tech companies.
What Actually Happened
Jaana (a Google Principel Engineer) and her team had been working on distributed agent orchestrators at Google since last year. These are complex systems that coordinate multiple AI agents working together. It’s not simple stuff—it requires deep technical expertise and careful planning.
Over the holidays, she decided to test Claude Code. She gave it just a three-paragraph description of the problem. No detailed specifications. No proprietary information. Just a basic explanation of what needed to be built.
The result? Claude Code generated what took her team a year to create.
She clarified in follow-up tweets that the output wasn’t perfect and required iteration. But the core functionality was there—built in a fraction of the time.
Understanding Vibe Coding
This incident perfectly demonstrates what the tech world now calls “vibe coding”. The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy, a co-founder of OpenAI and former Tesla AI leader, in February 2025.
Vibe coding refers to instructing AI agents to write code based on natural language prompts. You describe what you want in plain language, and the AI generates working code. You don’t manually write every line—you focus on the creative and strategic aspects instead.
The key difference from traditional coding: you work through iteration and refinement rather than writing from scratch. You evaluate the code by running it and checking results, then ask the AI for improvements.
It became so popular that Collins English Dictionary named it Word of the Year for 2025.
What This Means for Indian Developers
If you’re a young developer in India, this should both excite and motivate you. Here’s why:
The playing field is leveling. You don’t need years of experience to build complex systems anymore. With AI coding agents, you can prototype ideas that would have taken months in just hours.
Focus shifts to problem-solving. Understanding what to build and why matters more than knowing every syntax detail. Your ability to think through problems and articulate requirements becomes your superpower.
Speed of execution matters. The developer who can iterate fastest and test ideas quickest wins. AI coding agents let you move at unprecedented speed.
Practical Advice for Vibe Coding
Want to start using AI coding agents effectively? Here’s what works:
Start in Your Comfort Zone
- Test AI agents on problems you already understand well
- Build something complex from scratch where you can judge the quality
- This lets you evaluate the AI’s capabilities accurately
Master Effective Prompting
- Be specific and detailed about requirements
- Include examples of what you want
- Specify edge cases that need handling
- Reference existing patterns in your codebase
- Request explanations alongside code generation
Follow a Structured Approach
- Plan first, then divide into incremental tasks
- Keep individual tasks straightforward and simple
- Focus on iterative development—AI performs better with focused objectives
- Start with a rough implementation and iterate
- Review and identify areas for improvement
Provide Context
- Share relevant parts of your codebase when requesting help
- Explain project architecture and design decisions
- Specify coding standards and patterns to follow
- Define any constraints or requirements clearly
Think About Code Style
- Maintain consistent code style—AI generates better matches when surrounding code is consistent
- Avoid clever solutions—AI handles boring, straightforward code much better
- Use well-known idioms and patterns that AI knows and can process effectively
- Use AI to generate or modify tests, as tests are often linear and formulaic
Tools You Can Start Using
Claude Code is available as a Visual Studio Code extension and as a web-based tool. It can read and write code, run terminal commands with your approval, and suggest edits directly inside your editor.
Anthropic launched Claude Code for web in October 2025 as an asynchronous coding agent. It’s their answer to OpenAI’s Codex Cloud and Google’s Jules.
For Indian developers on a budget, there are also open-source alternatives gaining traction. Explore options that fit your workflow and budget.
The Reality Check
Jaana’s experience shows both the promise and the limits of AI coding agents. Yes, Claude Code generated complex functionality quickly. But she also emphasized it wasn’t perfect and required iteration.
When someone asked about Gemini (Google’s AI) catching up, Jaana responded that Google is working hard on both the models and the infrastructure. She praised Anthropic for building a great system, even though they’re competitors.
This tells you something important: AI coding agents are powerful tools, but they’re not magic. You still need expertise to evaluate, refine, and integrate what they generate.
What You Should Do Now
Don’t wait for the perfect moment to start. Pick a project you’ve been postponing because it seemed too complex or time-consuming. Break it down into clear requirements. Describe what you want to an AI coding agent. See what happens.
The worst outcome? You learn what AI can and can’t do in your domain. The best outcome? You build in hours what might have taken weeks.
The future of coding isn’t about replacing developers. It’s about amplifying what developers can achieve. Your ability to think strategically, solve problems creatively, and iterate quickly will determine your success—not how fast you can type code.
Start experimenting today. The tools are here. The opportunity is real. And the competition is already using them.