I’ve been arguing that the designer’s job is shifting from execution to orchestration—directing AI agents rather than pushing pixels. I made that case from the design side. Addy Osmani just made it from engineering based on what he’s seeing.

Osmani draws a hard line between vibe coding and what he calls “agentic engineering.” On vibe coding:

Vibe coding means going with the vibes and not reviewing the code. That’s the defining characteristic. You prompt, you accept, you run it, you see if it works. If it doesn’t, you paste the error back and try again. You keep prompting. The human is a prompt DJ, not an engineer.

“Prompt DJ” is good. But Osmani’s description of the disciplined version is what caught my attention—it’s the same role I’ve been arguing designers need to grow into:

You’re orchestrating AI agents - coding assistants that can execute, test, and refine code - while you act as architect, reviewer, and decision-maker.

Osmani again:

AI didn’t cause the problem; skipping the design thinking did.

An engineer wrote that. The spec-first workflow Osmani describes is design process applied to code. Designers have been saying “define the problem before you jump to solutions” for decades. AI just made that advice load-bearing for engineers too.

The full piece goes deep on skill gaps, testing discipline, and evaluation frameworks—worth a complete read.