An early-career engineer found out the hard way that relying on ChatGPT for coding without really understanding the output can seriously backfire, especially when the CTO starts asking questions.
In a Reddit post that’s now making the rounds, he shared how he was juggling two internships: one as a Site Reliability Engineer and another as a Software Developer at a very early-stage startup with just 20 employees. With no senior engineers to guide him, he turned to ChatGPT and Cursor to quickly build backend features.
“I was kind of proud of how fast I was shipping stuff,” he wrote. But that confidence crumbled during a demo when the CTO began asking deep questions about the code. “Why did you structure it this way?” “What does this function do internally?”
That’s when reality hit and he got caught.
Most of the code had been written by AI, and he couldn’t explain key parts. The CTO wasn’t angry, but he made his point clear: “I don’t mind if you use AI, but you have to know what your code is doing.” He then went on to explain the engineer’s own code to him, a moment he described as humbling.
Looking back, he admitted to “vibe-coding”, relying on AI without learning the basics of architecture, modularity, or clean code. Now, he’s reaching out to the developer community for guidance on how to level up and truly understand backend development.
The story has sparked discussions around the growing dependence on AI tools like ChatGPT in software engineering. While these tools can help move fast, this experience is a clear reminder that speed means little without understanding — especially when your CTO is paying attention.
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