The Train Has Left the Station
Here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud: The AI train has already left.
Not "is leaving." Not "will leave soon." *Has left.*
A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. I'm not saying this to scare you—I'm saying it because pretending otherwise won't help anyone. The disruption is here, it's real, and burying your head in the spreadsheets won't make it go away.
But here's what I find genuinely exciting: AI is democratizing software engineering in a way nothing else ever has.
You might be thinking: "Okay Marta, that's great for tech people. How does this affect *me*—someone who lives in Excel and Outlook and has never written a line of code?"
Actually, it affects you most of all.
Fighting Without Fighting
In my favorite movie, *Enter the Dragon*, there's a scene where an opponent asks Bruce Lee: "What is your fighting style?"
Bruce Lee's answer? "Fighting without fighting."
That scene has stuck with me for years. And when I discovered vibe coding, I finally understood why.
Vibe coding is coding without coding.
You don't need to memorize syntax. You don't need a computer science degree. You don't need to understand what a "for loop" is or why Python people argue about tabs versus spaces.
What you need is the ability to describe what you want, clearly and specifically. Then AI builds it for you.
And here's my personal translation of this concept: Working without working.
(Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But only slight.)
What Vibe Coding Actually Looks Like
Let me give you a real example.
Last month, I needed a tool to track something specific for one of my projects. In the old world, my options were:
2. Hire a developer (expensive, time-consuming)
3. Find some existing tool that *almost* works and force myself to adapt to it
With vibe coding, I opened Claude and said: "I need an app that does X, Y, and Z. Here's how I want it to work..."
Three hours later, I had a working prototype.
Not a sketch. Not a wireframe. A *working application* that I could actually use.
Was it perfect? No. Did it need iteration? Absolutely. But the thing that would have taken me weeks of learning or thousands of dollars to commission—I built it in an afternoon.
That's the superpower.
The Catch (Because There's Always a Catch)
Don't get me wrong. This isn't magic, and I'm not selling you a fairy tale.
Vibe coding requires:
- Effort. You need to learn how to communicate with AI effectively. That's a skill, and skills take practice.
- Time. You won't build TuduBooks.ai on your first day. (It took me months, including a brutal ten-day sprint.)
- A bit of expense. AI tools have costs. Subscriptions, API credits, the occasional $1,000 in credits you almost ignore out of spite...
- Patience with frustration. The tools aren't perfect. Sometimes they're maddening. Sometimes they "clean up" 800 lines of your code without asking. (Ask me how I know.)
But here's what I can tell you from the other side: Within six months—maybe faster, as tools keep improving—you can start creating real value.
Not "playing with AI." Creating actual things that solve actual problems.
Why 2026 Is Your Year
The window is open right now in a way it won't be forever.
Today, vibe coding is a differentiator. The person who can spin up a custom tool, automate a workflow, or build a prototype in a day has a genuine advantage.
In five years? This might just be baseline. Everyone will be expected to work this way.
So learn the skill now, while it still sets you apart. While you have time to experiment, fail, learn, and build confidence before it becomes mandatory.
This is your investment. Not in some course or certification—in yourself.
The Simple Truth
The AI train has left the station. You have two choices:
2. Start running and jump on
Vibe coding is how you jump on.
It's not about becoming a programmer. It's about becoming someone who can *use* programming to solve problems, even if you never see a single line of code.
Fighting without fighting. Coding without coding. Working without working.
That's the style.
Your Homework
Don't waste 2026.
This week, try this:
2. Open ChatGPT or Claude
3. Describe what you need: "I want a tool that does X"
4. See what happens
It won't be perfect. It might not even work the first time. But you'll feel something shift—the realization that the barrier between "idea" and "working tool" just got a whole lot thinner.
That feeling? That's the beginning of your superpower.
Still vibe coding, still learning, still occasionally amazed that this actually works.
P.S. The person who told me about vibe coding didn't call it that. They just showed me what was possible. Now I'm showing you. Pass it on.
P.P.S. If you're in a restricted corporate environment thinking "this won't work for me"—I see you. That's exactly what my whole series is about. The principles still apply, even behind the firewall.