"I haven't written a line of code in my life and I have no connection to programming"
Five tech professionals from Israeli companies share their side projects — from a baby tracking app to a guitar learning site — developed with the help of AI and Claude, proving that curiosity and desire can lead to real products even without a formal programming background.
The development of artificial intelligence and "vibe coding" tools have made programming something almost anyone can do, especially if they have a technical background and work in a high-tech company. Five tech professionals from Israeli companies who developed side projects — from a baby tracking app to a guitar learning site — tell mako how they did it. Most of these projects were created without advertising, without significant income, and with quite a bit of Claude in the background.
Mano Tracker: Baby tracking app
Mor Rosenstein, Senior Human Resources Business Partner at the cyber company Cycode, developed Mano Tracker, an app for tracking and managing a baby's developmental stages, named after her baby son Emmanuel. She created the app at the beginning of the year, during her maternity leave, out of a personal need to manage Emmanuel's growth stages in one place and to experiment with deeper work with AI.
Rosenstein says: "I haven't written a line of code in my life and I have no connection to programming." Her first conversation with Claude was a specification interview, where she gave him the role of product manager and designer. "So I gain not only an app, but also an understanding of what is happening behind the scenes," she says. The app developed in "baby steps" and tracks nutrition, sleep, and medication daily, while also including AI-based sleep and nutrition consultants.
Smart Guitar: Self-learning site
Ilya German, Head of AI at Sela, developed Smart Guitar 3 months ago, a site for self-learning to play the guitar. The tool breaks down every song into separate channels: Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Drums, Piano. It displays chords in real-time and allows you to isolate specific musical instruments.
"As an amateur guitar player who sings off-key, I was looking for an app that would help me improve, and when I didn't find one, I decided to develop it myself," says German. According to him, the development was a combination of vibe coding and correct architecture. The project has since moved to an autonomous development mode, with an AI agent connected to the app adding features.
Hushot: Mapping camping sites
Gal Ezra, Senior Full Stack Developer at Lusha, developed Hushot in 2021 together with Amit Turner. The two tried to book a place in Sinai, encountered difficulties, and decided to map most of the huts and camping sites on the peninsula themselves.
"Everything was scattered and inaccessible, so we decided to take the initiative," said Ezra. Hushot offers an index of huts and camping sites, with reviews and practical information about the Taba border crossing. The site was built from scratch with classic programming before the AI era.
CiteLens: Content adaptation for AI engines
Golan Buzenk, Director, Marketing Communications at AudioCodes, developed CiteLens about 4 months ago, a Chrome extension designed to help marketers and site managers understand how accessible their content is for artificial intelligence engines. The extension scans a webpage and gives it a score that predicts the chance it will appear as a cited source in AI answers.
"Development with AI, not vibe coding," said Buzenk. "I work with Claude in an orderly engineering process: documentation for every version, fixed work rules, and an automatic test suite. The AI writes the code, the decisions and responsibility are mine."
Hangman game in Hebrew
Shiran Elad, a senior Frontend developer at Gong, developed a digital version of the Hangman game in Hebrew about two months ago. It all started with a regular evening game with her 7-year-old son, Amit. "We opened Claude together in the browser, and within a few sentences, we already had a very early version of the game," said Elad.
Elad continued to develop the game using React, TypeScript, and Vite. After she shared the game online, feedback came from users, and today about 300 people use the game across various countries, including England, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Greece, and India.
