Your calendar's empty. Berlin isn't.
I built a vibes map to figure out how to navigate life after my layoff
My first vibe-coded project taught me not to trust the AI blindly. I didn't understand how the Google APIs worked, so every search and photo became a paid request, and an unexpected bill arrived: €98.69, with photos the biggest cost at 19,504 requests.
I made the bill a design constraint: Berlin instead of all of Germany, one starting vibe with the rest loaded on demand, a "Search here" button instead of dynamic loading, and photos only when users click on a place. The bill dropped.
Now I set quota caps and budget alerts before anything ships, I question what the AI builds and what impact it has, and I've learned how to negotiate better with developers.
Another big shift was designing hands-on in code, not just in Figma, which meant learning GitHub too, and the hard way how to protect secret keys after I exposed one in an AI chat.
For years, my days had a shape: wake up, go to the office. Then my role was impacted and I woke up with nowhere to be. Berlin felt too big, and Google Maps showed me where places were, not which one fit how I felt that day.
Solo product designer, 0→1 and end to end: problem framing, concept, UX and UI, and implementation (vibe coded). I used design thinking to turn how people feel into the way they find a place.
The list just lives here. Like a note on the fridge ;)