Ask HN: Engineers on highly polished products, how are you using agentic coding?

A Hacker News user asked engineers at highly polished product companies such as Linear, Instagram, Google Docs, and Figma how they use agentic coding, noting that agentic tools get projects 90% of the way to "finished" but that reaching real polish takes monumental effort when "vibing." The Ask HN post, which had 3 points and 1 comment at the time of the source, asks whether those organizations simply move slower or still rely on humans for visual design and copy editing. The question contrasts world-class products that stayed polished before and after LLMs with vibe-coded apps that lack professional polish.

Hi HN, Agentic coding is amazing at getting you 90% of the way to "finished", but getting products to feel really polished seems to take monumental effort if you're just "vibing". Yet engineers working on world-class products have ample access to plenty of frontier LLM tokens. Products like Linear, Instagram, Google Docs, Figma, etc. This class of products were super polished before LLMs took over, and they've stayed polished in the post-LLM era. My question: What's different about how those products are built/maintained that keeps them feeling polished? Compare with so many vibe-coded apps we've all seen, which almost universally feel like they're missing that polish that makes them feel professional. For example: - Are these organizations simply moving slower? As they're already incumbent in the space. - Is visual design, copy editing, etc. still being done by gasp humans? Would love to hear any first- or second-hand accounts Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812392 Points: 3 Comments: 1