What is Vibe Coding?

Simply put, vibe coding is prompt-driven product development where you use generative AI + no-code AI-first platforms to produce apps and tools. Rather than manually writing code, you can now produce code by simply composing prompts and iterating. These prompts are then converted into working prototypes and deployable apps.

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Why Product Managers Should Learn Vibe Coding

Vibe coding gives PMs three tactical advantages:

1. Speed for discovery. Rapid, testable prototypes let you validate user flows, assumptions and value propositions without full engineering cycles.
2. Independence for internal tooling. Build dashboards, automations and lightweight tools to remove bottlenecks or unblock teams.
3. Stay up to date. As product managers, we need to track emerging trends and tools, not just to improve our own workflows, but also for the products we’re building. Vibe coding is a practical way to ease into new tech releases and build confidence with them.

Disclaimer: vibe coding is not a substitute for engineering when you need scale, robust security, or complex backend architectures. It’s a discovery and prototyping accelerator when used correctly.

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Use Cases: When to Vibe-Code vs When Not To

Best for

• Prototyping UX & flows for user research and stakeholder demos.
• Internal tools (dashboards, admin panels, automations).
• Hackathon-speed MVPs and PoCs to validate market fit.
• Learning new frameworks and testing integrations quickly.

Not suitable for

• High-security or regulated systems (finance, health) without engineering oversight.
• Complex backend logic requiring optimization, concurrency, or long-running processes.
• Products where maintenance and long-term ownership must be tightly controlled without engineering handover.

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The Best Vibe Coding Tools

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Suggested Workflow: from Idea to MVP

1. Write down product idea & basic specs. Include a problem statement (user, need, benefit) and success metrics (2 leading + 1 activation).
2. Get UX inspiration from Dribbble or Behance to anchor style and interaction patterns.
3. Ask Claude/GPT to draft a simple PRD that also includes Given–When–Then acceptance criteria, constraints, and assumptions.
4. Break into screens/features and define data model, routes, auth, APIs; create a prompt plan (UI → data → logic → styling → tests). Use chatbots to understand which APIs are easy for you to integrate
5. Choose the tool (Lovable, Bolt, Cursor, etc.) based on your requirements. Do you want a quick prototype, a webapp, or a mobile app?
6. Prompt the no-code/AI tool step-by-step, referencing acceptance criteria and design inspiration to generate UI + glue code.
7. Troubleshoot via prompt iteration; ask for proper error handling where possible and identify errors using a mix of your PM skills, chatbots, and the platform’s own debugger.
8. Deploy to Netlify/Vercel and share (set environment variables for security); collect usage data.
9. Run quick user research: ship a clickable prototype to testers, do 5–10 usability tests, capture qualitative + quantitative feedback, iterate.
10. Review results vs. success metrics; check if your results match expectations and reach the metrics you’ve set. We as PMs need to remember that we’re always building products for our users. Sometimes we forget that and then get disappointed by the results.
11. Decide handover: Decide if you want to continue your tool on the vibe coding platform, or if you want your engineers to develop this on their own. Package tech stack, schema, API contracts, tests for engineering. Make sure to document everything so that your team can onboard fast.

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Integrations and Deployment Checklist

• Auth & users: Decide whether to use Supabase or any other authentication for users. Bolt.new and Lovable have recently started working on their own in-built authentication mechanisms too.
• Data storage: If you need to store any kind of data (images, account information, dynamic link creation), you will need to integrate a database. Supabase is supported on most tools by default.
• Versioning: Use Github to store your code and share it with any engineers or consultants. Push updates to Github to have a clear log of all the versions you publish.
• Hosting: Vercel and Netlify are user-friendly options that come pre-supported by most tools. They also provide free hosting up to a limit.
• Privacy: Never upload sensitive data such as APIs, secret keys, or personal information on your tool. Always ask the platform to let you know how to add these by yourself, to avoid having them stored in your chats or front-end code.

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The Rising Trend of Vibe Coding in PM Interviews

What’s Happening in Interviews Right Now

There are increasing reports that a “vibe coding” or AI-prototyping round is being introduced into PM interview loops, especially at major tech companies like Google, Stripe, and Netflix. Candidates describe being asked to complete live prototyping tasks or to produce a small prototype or prompt plan under strict time limits.

The purpose of these rounds is to test whether candidates can move quickly from product thinking and theoretical knowledge into an executable prototype. Interviewers also use them to assess how well candidates reason about tradeoffs, limitations, and the practical realities of product design and development.

The trend is not without debate, though. Some product managers see it as the equivalent of LeetCode but for product managers: a fast signal of technical fluency. Others question whether it truly reflects the skills needed for long-term success in product management and warn against adopting vibe coding as a default standard for interviews.

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How Interviewers Evaluate Vibe Coding

Although the exact evaluation criteria hasn’t been made public, a timed vibe coding exercise acts as a simulation that puts core product management skills under pressure. The key skills it can highlight include:

1. Problem clarity & scope control — Did the candidate define assumptions and constraints quickly?
2. Feasibility & stack decisions — Are the chosen technologies and data flows realistic for an MVP?
3. User outcomes & metrics — Did they specify success metrics and user-impact hypotheses?
4. Prompting & prototyping skill — Are prompts clear, testable, and modular? (If AI-generated code was used, can the candidate explain it?)
5. Follow-up Q&A — Depth of explanation under probing questions (security, scale, edge cases).

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Conclusion & Next Steps

Vibe coding is no longer just a curiosity in the product toolkit, it’s quickly becoming a practical skill for product managers. By combining AI-driven prototyping tools with structured product thinking, PMs can move from idea to MVP in days rather than weeks. The approach isn’t about replacing engineers or writing perfect code. It’s about sharpening problem framing, accelerating discovery, and making user testing more accessible.

The future of product management isn’t just about writing PRDs. It’s about prototyping with AI, testing with users, and translating insights into products that matter. Vibe coding gives PMs a way to do exactly that.

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FAQ

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