Shadowing Practice: Can This Vibe Coder Beat a Senior Developer? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Can AI make a Vibe Coder beat a senior engineer?

We locked a Vibe Coder, a junior dev, and a senior dev in one room.

One challenge.

Unlimited AI. Who wins?

Hey everyone, I'm Sudarshan and I'm the Vibe Coder.

Hi, my name is Ocean.

I'm the junior developer for today.

Hi everyone, my name is Ankush Dharkar.

I'm a senior developer.

For the past decade, I've been building high-scale systems.

Build an AI agent that reads Hackerang support tickets and decides to reply.

Or escalate it to a human.

Do I get a job here if I build this?

Can I build this for Claude instead?

Because I think they need support more.

I actually lucked out because Opus 4.8 launched last night.

So I just used the best in class model.

I never use Claude.

I do not trust Claude.

It's just too expensive.

High maintenance is not for me.

Sorry.

I have Claude code and I have God, so that works.

Time actually started.

The second loop.

This is the code base which has four things the hacker rank support tickets they need to sort, a help center they pull answers from for tickets,

a starter file written in Python where they build the agent, and an agent's .md, a guide that gives the AI its rules.

Right now, the scaffold has a Python file in it.

I'm not really comfortable working with Python, so I'll probably move to JavaScript or TypeScript, TypeScript hopefully, so that I can also read the code in case I have to verify something.

And then I have a bunch of things here in the GitHub repository, which let's be real, I don't think I'm going to read any of this.

Time to put all of this directly into Claude.

So definitely there has to be some P0s, like undeniable for the product.

I want to make sure the AI gets that.

If AI doesn't get that, we have a bigger problem.

I am still nervous because it's again a huge project in such less time.

And I also have to keep the UI in mind.

I did test two different intras.

One is where there would be multiple LLM calls for each ticket.

But the other one would be where it would sort of upload in batches

or it would process in batches and they would be async sort of processing.

There's a whole listing of all these tickets that's been raised to the agent.

I have a very extensive test suite.

Also built, like I said, open routers because, you know, in early stage, we want to get feedback quickly, but at the same time, have something we can ship if we wanted to.

I'm the most worried about the junior developer.

Why?

I think they bring the energy and so much experience with AI tools that they'll crush it.

Only escalate 20% of the issues.

I am now sort of doubting and figuring out if that actually the right implementation.

Awesome.

So we do have the first version ready here.

It was able to index all of the support tickets we have.

It's also able to retrieve it.

But the UI is, at least as of now, looks like it's up and working without any errors.

So I'll probably take that as a win because we only spent about 45 minutes.

Every engineer was locked in until the product manager walked in with his ideas.

Can you explain what you've made?

So I essentially have a support rat agent.

I'm calling it hand because it can go through a ticket batch.

We should do a toggle, dark mode and light mode.

Sure.

Call it the colorblind mode.

So the product manager was here a while ago

and he asked me to build the dark mode

and light mode toggle based on the time of the day and I tried building it.

It sort of messed up my code altogether and now I'm just trying to like get it fixed.

My infra just suddenly seems a bit flaky.

So, look at that dude.

Basically it creates wireframes.

So right now I'm just building a few AI mockups so

that I can refer to this like on a high level

design how I should connect the data to the UI as well.

Hello, what's up?

What is Rag?

Rag is the model that, you know, segregates whether the ticket should be assigned.

I don't think you know what it means.

I forgot the filter.

I'm going to launch different sessions.

One will build the UI which will have its own test.

One can just be an agent that goes through, creates the RAD, creates the agent pipeline.

And then one can be a simple backend server that connects those two.

It's a flat architecture.

You understand, right?

What I'm talking about.

Now, start it.

Okay, now put all the same color together.

You fended off a villain, a product manager, here's your reward, choose one lifeline.

Phone a dev, 10 minutes on the phone with a DL engineer, I'd rather talk to Kursar.

Borrowed time, plus 15 minutes at the end, a diet coke, you get one diet coke.

I'll take the borrowed time, plus 15 minutes at the end.

I think I don't need to phone a dev, I have Claude Code and I have God so I think I'll go with two, borrowed time.

I think I'll phone a dev.

Wait, I'm the only one who's gonna phone a dev?

Yeah.

I know.

That's such a junior engineer thing to do.

Meet Hank.

Hank is Hackerank's support agent that would be able to cover any kind of support tasks by itself.

You can either ask it a particular question that you have or you can also attach a CSV.

I think on the longer run, Alvin, because they'll exhaust their tokens.

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Hello, yeah we have a problem.

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My tokens are over so I would need more.

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Yes, thank you.

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I'll have to lock in the last one hour.

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So what you do is whenever you want to repeat something right in your API, there are two ways to do it.

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Right, so what do you do?

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My whole approach is wrong, as usual.

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At this stage, this end of the competition, I think I'm expecting all of them to at least have finished a demonstrable product

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which at least starts processing the tickets and triages them.

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The quality of triage may not be great but that is always something that can be improved upon later.

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Hey, you have 10 minutes to go.

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Do you still want that extra 15?

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No, I think I'm good.

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I would rather take a 2 rupee office.

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Is that Picasso?

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Oh, that's one of the best paintings I've seen too.

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So, this is the basic UI of what we built

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so far in the last few hours gave it a pretty

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hacker ranky feel the same kind of theme same kind of colors

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and stuff as you can see we have a list of

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all the tickets here gave user a simple control to run

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it this can be automated as well it's a pretty simple

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fix we have a place where all the triage tickets go

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and i also created a stats for nerd kind of a page

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so that if you want to dive deeper into what caused certain answers to be escalated

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or to be replied you can take a look there let's see how it performs even

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if it fails that's okay i can live with it

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because i know the way this is built there will be

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minor tweaks to be done to raise it to the bar of a production application.

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The front end is pretty much just made out of HTML that is again like grabbed in a Python file, the main file of Python.

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You can search them up, you can see categorization based on the type of request it is or the outcome and then you can see the tickets,

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you can see all the categories again and once you click on

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that row you get into the ticket summary where you can see everything the UI

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and base this agent was completely working on the UI and fixing up cosmetic issues.

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The agent workspace is working completely on the agent, the rag model, the fast API, and also building that scaffold for LLM to answer the user.

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Today I've built Hank.

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Hank is an AI agent that goes through Hackerang support tickets

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and it would sort of come up with a grounded reply on any sort of support ticket

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if it can sort of resolve by itself.

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If not, it would immediately flag it for human review.

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You can ask Hank anything to begin with.

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Hank would be able to process all of them at once.

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Let's go ahead and maybe attach a CSV of a bunch of support tickets.

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And as you can see, Hank is able to essentially go through each of the support tickets

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and it sort of tests this with all the knowledge base articles that Hacker Hank already has.

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And it would just prioritize them and figure out whether each of the tickets needs human review or not.

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It would also categorize it based on whether it's a product issue, whether it's a bug.

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One thing that I can compete with in this case would be user experience

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and design and interaction and what are the different kinds of delight moments.

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Still, I'm still hoping I won't finish last.

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Now they defend their submission to an AI judge who has the full context of their code and prompts.

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Give me a quick two-minute pitch of what you built.

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Walk me through what happens from a support agent's point of view, start to finish.

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So this is what happens, right?

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The support agent essentially...

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And now, on to the results.

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I've read every line of code, every prompt, and every answer the three of you gave me today.

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Every one of you leaned on AI today, but the ones who did best understood what they shipped.

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Tonight, the person who balanced them best is Ankur.

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Congratulations.

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Any final thoughts?

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The biggest thing is I think the AI models have become

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really good where you can work on things you've never worked before.

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Like some of the things I've worked on today, I've never worked on in my life.

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I just barely knew some concepts and I was able to just use one model, ask it through and get things rolling and within the time frame got pieced together and it worked.

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So I think good fundamentals, good experience asking the right questions.

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We should be playing along with the model

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and being a good partner with the AI coding agents and build something out together.

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This was a lot of fun.

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Thank you HackerRank team for doing this and looking forward to more challenges and folks have fun with AI, build cool things and let's get cracking.

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Why Practice Speaking with This Video?

Learning English with videos like this one is a game-changer for your speaking skills. The casual, real-world dialogue between the vibe coder, junior dev, and senior developer creates a perfect context for english speaking practice. You’ll hear natural questions, debates, and problem-solving talk—exactly the kind of communication you’d use in work or daily life. Plus, the mix of confidence and nerves in their voices makes it easy to shadowspeak (repeat aloud while mimicking tone and pace). It’s like having a conversation with peers, helping you sound more fluent and less scripted.

Grammar & Expressions in Context

The video is packed with useful phrases to add to your toolkit. Here are 3 key ones:

“Do I get a job here if I build this?” This conditional question uses “if” to link a hypothetical action to a result—great for negotiating or asking about outcomes.
“I’m not really comfortable working with Python, so I’ll probably move to JavaScript.” The structure “I’m not comfortable + [verb-ing], so + [plan]” is perfect for explaining preferences and solutions.
“I am still nervous because it’s again a huge project in such less time.” “Because + [reason]” here connects feelings to situations, helping you express emotions clearly.

These phrases work in both professional and casual settings, making them ideal for shadow speech practice.

Common Pronunciation Traps

Watch out for these tricky words in the dialogue:

“HackerRank” The stress is on “Hacker,” not “Rank”—say it “HACK-er-rank,” not “hack-ER-rank.”
“Claude” This name is pronounced “KLAWD,” not “KLOOD” or “KLAH-dee.”
“Async” Short for “asynchronous,” it’s pronounced “AY-sink,” not “AH-sink” or “uh-SINK.”

Mimicking these sounds while shadowing will help you avoid common mistakes and sound more natural. Whether you’re into tech or just want to boost your speaking, this video is a fun way to practice. Grab a notebook, hit play, and start shadowspeaking—your fluency will thank you!

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	been raised · was locked · should be assigned
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've made · have finished · I've seen
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	base which has · ones who did · person who balanced

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Grammar in this video

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