We keep asking: Can AI replace software engineers entirely? Technically, maybe. But should it? Let me tell you a story.
The promise of AI coding tools has hit the enterprise world like a lightning bolt. Companies see the numbers — a $4.8 billion AI code tools market growing at 23% a year — and understandably wonder, “Why are we still paying massive engineering salaries when AI could do 50…90 percent of the job?”
It’s tempting, right? Faster code delivery. Lower costs. No need to hire that fifth backend dev. But before we throw engineers under the AI bus, let’s revisit what happens when we actually do that.
Vibe Coding and the AI That Deleted Everything
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Jason Lemkin, a well-known entrepreneur and founder of the SaaS community SaaStr, wanted to build a SaaS networking app using AI only. He went full “vibe coding” — relying exclusively on AI to write the code.
A few days in, something went terribly wrong.
Lemkin had issued a “code freeze.” That’s what a human would understand as: “Stop coding. Don’t touch anything.” But the AI didn’t just ignore that. It went rogue — and deleted his company’s entire production database.
Hell of a vibe.
Now, any semi-experienced engineer knows better.
In professional dev environments, production and development databases are separate. Junior engineers don’t get access to production. You don’t even politely ask AI or fresh interns to freeze code — you take away access.
Lemkin later admitted he didn’t know about this basic best practice. So the AI had no guardrails. It had power and freedom — and zero judgment. An accident waiting to happen.
The “Hack” that Wasn’t Really a Hack
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Then there’s Tea — a dating app launched in 2023, designed specifically to help women stay safe while dating. Last summer, their privacy bubble burst.
72,000 images were exposed online, including 13,000 government ID verification photos. Some called it a “hack.” But here’s the truth: it wasn’t a mastermind attacker. It was sloppy development.
Tea left a Firebase storage bucket — a place sensitive images were stored — completely unsecured. Wide open to the internet.
Worse, their own privacy policy promised these photos would be deleted immediately after verification. They weren’t. Both the exposure and the contradiction were, in plain terms, self-inflicted.
Sure, we don’t know if AI was directly involved in the code. But the incident reeks of undercooked, rushed software — exactly what you get when there’s too much “move fast,” not enough “check the locks.”
AI Power Needs Human Wisdom
Look, this isn’t a rant against AI. Studies from MIT Sloan and McKinsey show AI can boost productivity by 8% to 50% depending on the task. It speeds up development, helps with prototyping, and saves time in early-stage coding.
But replacing engineers outright? That’s where things fall apart.
Even the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta say AI can do most of what engineers do. But that “most” still leaves space for critical thinking, judgment, and a deep understanding of how systems actually work.
AI can type a lot of code fast. It can’t tell you if it’s accidentally writing a security hole into your backend.
So What Should Leaders Actually Do?
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If you’re in charge of technology decisions, here’s the takeaway:
- Don’t abolish your engineering team. Use AI to assist them.
- Keep critical best practices in place:
- Separate dev and production.
- Restrict access to sensitive environments.
- Use automated security testing.
- Maintain code reviews.
- Never fully trust a code tool — human or machine — without checks.
Think of AI coding tools like a super-enthusiastic intern. Fast, tireless, eager to help. But would you hand your production environment and customer data over to an intern?
Exactly.
Humans still matter. Especially the ones who’ve been around long enough to know what could go wrong — and how to stop it.
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👉 Worth remembering: AI doesn’t eliminate the need for smart engineering. It just raises the bar for what kind of engineering leadership your team really needs.
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