Learn how tailoring AI to your thinking style can unlock surprising progress. This story shows how a neurodivergent creator used vibe coding to build practical tools and find renewed inspiration.
Nency Yera is a Revenue Strategy professional at Microsoft who discovered vibe coding three months ago and hasn’t stopped building since.
I have ADHD and no coding background. Until three months ago, the idea of building software made me want to close my laptop and walk away.
Every time I tried to learn something technical, the same thing happened. Launch a tutorial. Stare at wall of text. Brain opens 47 tabs, panics, and quietly exits. Then that voice shows up: This isn’t for people like you.
I believed that voice for a long time. I don’t anymore. Because it turns out that my brain was never the problem; my brain was the power source.
The wall
I work in Revenue Strategy at Microsoft. My job is operational excellence, not code. But I had a problem I couldn’t fix with spreadsheets: critical knowledge that leaders need to run their business was buried in slide decks and documents nobody could find.
I could see the solution in my head. I just couldn’t build it. The traditional path to learning—tutorials, documentation, courses? Linear steps. Walls of text. Built for brains that work differently than mine.
My brain needs fast feedback. Not a 40-page document. It needs someone to say, Here. One step. Try it. Good. Now the next one.
The unlock
So I decided to open GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code and do something I’d never done with any tool before. I told it exactly how my brain works.
“I have ADHD. Give me one step at a time. Use plain language. Wait for me before moving on. No jargon.”
And it took this information in.
A supportive, low‑jargon VS Code guide introduces a noncoder to the basics of building with AI.
When I said, “I’m confused,” it broke things into smaller pieces. When I said, “Too many words,” it switched to bullet points. When I prompted, “Explain this like I’m brand new,” it did. No judgment. No rush.
I broke things constantly. Red squiggly lines everywhere. But instead of panicking, I’d prompt, “Something’s broken. Help me fix it,” and Copilot walked me through it. Every mistake became a lesson I remembered because I learned it by doing.
I saved those preferences in a file called copilot-instructions.md. Now, with every conversation, Copilot already has the context it needs about how I think and process. That was the unlock. It turned a generic tool into a collaborator that adapts to me.
Then I made VS Code feel like mine. Dark theme. Rainbow-colored indentation so every line popped. Extensions that showed errors right where they happen instead of hiding them in some log I’d never find. Suddenly, my screen looked like something I wanted to stare at.
It stopped being scary. It started being fun.
What I built
In the first week, I built a website that organizes 205 performance metrics into one searchable hub. Prep that used to take leaders hours now takes minutes.
Then I built a dashboard that helps leaders track how teams adopt AI-powered tools across every operating unit. It’s deployed globally. What used to require hours of manual data gathering now runs on its own.
After that, I built newsletter templates that turn meeting transcripts into polished executive recaps sent to all levels of leadership. What previously took 45 minutes of writing now takes seconds.
And I built a cheat sheet that translates every scary technical term into plain English, because “commit” should just mean “save,” and “repo” should just mean “project folder.”
None of this required a computer science degree. It required what I already had: knowledge of the problem, ideas for the solution, and a brain that wouldn’t stop until the fix worked.
The leader who made it possible
I have to be honest. I didn’t do this alone. I have a leader who saw what was possible before I did. He ran live demos in team meetings. Created space to experiment. Never once said, “That’s not your job.” Instead, he said, “What do you want to build next?”
Not every neurodivergent person has that. And they should. Because when a leader gives someone permission to explore and learn at their own pace, what comes back is extraordinary.
People with neurodivergent brains don’t think in straight lines. We think in webs. In patterns. In creative leaps that don’t make sense to others until we build the thing and say, “See? This is what I meant.” Vibe coding finally lets us show our ideas instead of just describing them.
Your brain might work like mine
If you’ve ever closed a laptop in frustration or told yourself, “I’m not technical enough,” I want you to know something.
The problem was never your brain. The tools just weren’t ready for you yet. They are now.
You don’t need to learn to code. You need VS Code (a free app), GitHub Copilot (the AI inside it), and five minutes to tell it how you think. My first working page took 20 minutes. Start with the Vibe Coding Cheat Sheet. Customize your setup so it feels like yours. Then describe what you want to build, and watch it happen. As noted on the cheat sheet, you don't need to be a coder to build cool things.
AI without your brain is just an empty tool. Your expertise, your ideas, your way of thinking? That’s the power behind everything AI can do. And what you build, when someone finally gives you the tools and trusts you to run with them, will surprise everyone.
Especially yourself.
Microsoft