Episode Details

Lazar Jovanovic is a full-time professional vibe coder at Lovable. His job is to build both internal tools and customer-facing products purely using AI, while not having a coding background. In this conversation, he breaks down the tactics, workflows, and framework that let him ship production-quality products using only AI.

We discuss:

1. Why having no coding background can be an advantage when building with AI

2. Why most of your time should go to planning and chat mode, not prompting

3. What to do when you get stuck: his 4x4 debugging workflow

4. The PRD and Markdown file system that keeps AI agents aligned across complex builds

5. Why kicking off four or five parallel prototypes is the best way to clarify your thinking

6. Why design skills and taste are going to be the most important skills in the future

7. His “genie and three wishes” mental model for making the most of AI’s limitations

8. How product, engineering, and design roles are converging—and what that means for your career

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Brought to you by:

Strella—The AI-powered customer research platform: https://strella.io/lenny

Samsara—Saving lives with AI built for physical operations: https://samsara.com/lenny

WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny

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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/getting-paid-to-vibe-code

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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0

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Where to find Lazar Jovanovic:

• X: https://x.com/lakikentaki

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lazar-jovanovic

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@50in50challenge

• Starter Story course: https://build.starterstory.com/build/ai-build-accelerator?via=lazar (code LAZAR15 for 15% off)

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Lazar and professional vibe coding

(04:53) What a professional vibe coder actually does day-to-day

(09:26) Why non-technical backgrounds can be an advantage

(12:24) The importance of self-awareness

(14:42) His “genie and three wishes” mental model

(17:43) Developing taste and judgment in the age of AI

(21:46) The parallel project approach for better outcomes

(29:30) Creating dynamic context windows with PRDs

(36:56) Why elite vibe coders focus