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Author argues developers should stop calling themselves artisanal programmers
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The post urges developers to reject the 'artisanal programmer' label and identify as engineers to stress reliability and deep code understanding.
Labeling oneself as an artisanal programmer can weaken the perception of engineering rigor and reinforce a trend where reliability work is dismissed as unserious. Reclaiming the engineer title highlights that care, attention, and precision are core engineering traits, not merely artistic craft. This shift could affect hiring, team expectations, and the value placed on thorough verification and correctness.
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The author contends that calling oneself an artisanal programmer conflicts with the pursuit of reliable, correct code.
The post notes that vibecoding is increasingly seen as the default, making thorough correctness efforts appear unserious.
Reclaiming the engineer label emphasizes that engineering is defined by care and precision, not just by the act of coding.
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The article challenges the label 'artisanal programmer' by arguing that it conflicts with the author's goal of producing reliable, correct code. It notes that the industry often contrasts 'serious' engineers who focus on outcomes with 'artisanal' coders who value the coding experience. This dichotomy, the author says, misrepresents developers who care about both outcome and craft.
To achieve the desired level of correctness, the author avoids using large language models, arguing that they isolate the programmer from low-level details and cannot guarantee correctness by construction. This choice means forgoing the assistance that LLMs can provide in activities such as code review, unit testing, or formal verification. The author accepts a slower development pace in exchange for a deeper connection to the codebase and higher confidence in correctness. The trade-off reflects a prioritization of reliability over speed.
In many teams today, vibecoding is portrayed as the norm and spending time on reliability work is labeled unserious, which creates cultural pressure against the artisanal stance. Adopting the engineer identity may clash with environments that reward rapid iteration and treat technical debt as an acceptable trade-off. Where speed and feature delivery are prioritized, the insistence on deep, manual correctness can become a bottleneck. Consequently, the approach may stop working in contexts that demand rapid prototyping or frequent releases.
By rejecting the artisanal label and reclaiming the term 'software engineer', the post seeks to restore a vocabulary that distinguishes engineering rigor from mere coding activity. It suggests that the field needs richer terminology to differentiate those who focus on reliability from those who prioritize rapid, exploratory development. Such a shift could influence hiring practices, team expectations, and how correctness is valued across the industry.
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