4 ms·

There's a full generation of talented women software engineers who do not have computer science degrees. I just happen to be one of them, and I worked my way i

There's a full generation of talented women software engineers who do not have computer science degrees. I just happen to be one of them, and I worked my way into the top 1% of software engineers (by salary) in Silicon Valley. I've spent a lot of time wondering: how did this happen? How many more people out there just like me, and how do I invest in them NOW? Here's a podcast that does a great job of explaining how PC advertising in the 80s/90s and onwards resulted in the current abysmal number of women CS graduates (in the US / English-speaking countries especially). https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/1141358586/women-coders-programming-computer-science https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/1141358586/women-coders-progr...

grepLeigh 4y ago
Also, this might be a wildly unpopular opinion, but... As much as we glorify technical founders, a CTO is still an employee. YC has an investment thesis that fixates on early technical talent, but I think software production is basically a commodity in 2023 (and onwards). Here's an example of me generating an AsyncApi schema with ChatGPT (similar to OpenAPI / Swagger, but for systems built around distributed events/msgs). https://twitter.com/grepLeigh/status/1604935357832654848?t=XfFyc2Pix585qoJAqo9QQQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/grepLeigh/status/1604935357832654848?t=X... In a year or two, I'll probably be able to build a production micro-service by dictating to an LLM. That'll be the execution tool of choice for a Founder doesn't have much coding exp, but has 10-15+ years of line of business experience. I say all this as someone who thought they'd be a CTO and has depended on software to put food on the table for 15 years.
ipaddr 4y ago
If you are at the top 1% level why not quit and roll the dice like the other yc founders? Do males take more chances?
- grepLeigh 4y ago
  I reckon you might have missed another one of my posts, with deets about the business I'm building. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34267515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34267515 I wouldn't call it rolling the dice though. Starting a business is a calculated way to continue compounding my wealth all while doing something that I love and that I believe will be important in my lifetime.
  - boulos 4y ago
    PrintNanny seems neat! I'm curious though about the business plan going forward though (after the beta). My assumption would be that PrintNanny is currently targeting hobbyists and smaller 3d printing services. I say smaller, because I assume that companies like Shapeways either already have something similar or would build their own if you tried to charge enough. (E.g., for $XM/yr they could hire multiple engineers to work on it full time). Is the angle to expand laterally into more manual monitoring opportunities? (ShopNanny?) Go deeper? Is this market bigger than people think?
    - grepLeigh 4y ago
      Thanks for the kind words! My target market is SMB manufacturers in the US and Germany. My ideal SaaS customer has 10-15 employees and 5M in annual revenue, around 50% coming from a mix of services and government contracts. The United States is ramping up domestic manufacturing, since the pandemic revealed weakness in "just in time" supply chains. Automation/AI-assisted production is the only way to make the unit economics work though. Picture Zapier, but laser-focused on automating service/production tasks. Here's a rundown of the public-private programs committing resources to replacing imported parts with domestic 3D printed parts. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/06/fact-sheet-biden-administration-celebrates-launch-of-am-forward-and-calls-on-congress-to-pass-bipartisan-innovation-act/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... The second line of business I want to add in 2023 is a white-labeled PrintNanny appliance, with a SaaS sub. A few 3D printer manufacturers have reached out to me and are interested in white-labeling PrintNanny for their large format printers, which retail for 5-10k/unit. This will give me access to trusted/mature distribution networks while I'm building the business's credibility. I've talked to 3D printer manufacturers who've tried to build their own stuff in house, since the margins of software (90%+) are VERY attractive to a hardware biz with margins around 30%. The tl;dr is: 1) 3D printer manufacturers are only willing to invest in in-house software for their hardware, but most manufacturing shops use like 10-20 different pieces of hardware from 5+ vendors. No one wants to spend money supporting their competitor's hardware. 2) Shapeways (consumer and pro-sumer on-demand printing) is not where the money is. Compare to 2D printing: the overhead of print-on-demand t-shirts is not an attractive investment. Shapeways is the Rush Order Tees Dot Com of 3D printing. The REAL money in 3D printing comes from companies who are manufacturing drone parts for the US gov, misc plastics for OEM and after-market automotive industry, satellites, commercial plumbing, Ag Tech. Ask someone who works at John Deere their ballpark budget for domestic manufactured parts. The next 10 years of plastics and metal additive manufacturing on US soil are going to be important, and the stuff sci fi nerds like me used to dream electric dreams about
danielscrubs 4y ago
"There's a full generation of talented women software engineers who do not have computer science degrees." Yes? "I just happen to be one of them, and I worked my way into the top 1% of software engineers (by salary) in Silicon Valley. I've spent a lot of time wondering: how did this happen? How many more people out there just like me, and how do I invest in them NOW?" My wife is an IT consultant (frontend), the most recent customer actively asked for women developers so both of the women in the company got the job directly without any interviews (they had other gigs at the time). The IT consultant company is making bank, she is not (happened to me too so I switched industry). So maybe start an IT consultant company? Seems to be quite the market for it.
- grepLeigh 4y ago
  Hey, I appreciate that you're trying to be helpful - but a service business doesn't produce the return on time investment I want. It's kind of like recommending I buy franchises near an airport. i.e. super time intensive, but can be very rewarding in the right conditions! I used to run a WordPress services business before SquareSpace/Wix commoditized the space. If your wife decides to start an IT consulting company, tell her to shoot me an email.

grepLeigh 4y ago

Also, this might be a wildly unpopular opinion, but... As much as we glorify technical founders, a CTO is still an employee. YC has an investment thesis that fixates on early technical talent, but I think software production is basically a commodity in 2023 (and onwards). Here's an example of me generating an AsyncApi schema with ChatGPT (similar to OpenAPI / Swagger, but for systems built around distributed events/msgs). https://twitter.com/grepLeigh/status/1604935357832654848?t=XfFyc2Pix585qoJAqo9QQQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/grepLeigh/status/1604935357832654848?t=X... In a year or two, I'll probably be able to build a production micro-service by dictating to an LLM. That'll be the execution tool of choice for a Founder doesn't have much coding exp, but has 10-15+ years of line of business experience. I say all this as someone who thought they'd be a CTO and has depended on software to put food on the table for 15 years.

ipaddr 4y ago

If you are at the top 1% level why not quit and roll the dice like the other yc founders? Do males take more chances?

grepLeigh 4y ago
I reckon you might have missed another one of my posts, with deets about the business I'm building. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34267515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34267515 I wouldn't call it rolling the dice though. Starting a business is a calculated way to continue compounding my wealth all while doing something that I love and that I believe will be important in my lifetime.
- boulos 4y ago
  PrintNanny seems neat! I'm curious though about the business plan going forward though (after the beta). My assumption would be that PrintNanny is currently targeting hobbyists and smaller 3d printing services. I say smaller, because I assume that companies like Shapeways either already have something similar or would build their own if you tried to charge enough. (E.g., for $XM/yr they could hire multiple engineers to work on it full time). Is the angle to expand laterally into more manual monitoring opportunities? (ShopNanny?) Go deeper? Is this market bigger than people think?
  - grepLeigh 4y ago
    Thanks for the kind words! My target market is SMB manufacturers in the US and Germany. My ideal SaaS customer has 10-15 employees and 5M in annual revenue, around 50% coming from a mix of services and government contracts. The United States is ramping up domestic manufacturing, since the pandemic revealed weakness in "just in time" supply chains. Automation/AI-assisted production is the only way to make the unit economics work though. Picture Zapier, but laser-focused on automating service/production tasks. Here's a rundown of the public-private programs committing resources to replacing imported parts with domestic 3D printed parts. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/06/fact-sheet-biden-administration-celebrates-launch-of-am-forward-and-calls-on-congress-to-pass-bipartisan-innovation-act/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... The second line of business I want to add in 2023 is a white-labeled PrintNanny appliance, with a SaaS sub. A few 3D printer manufacturers have reached out to me and are interested in white-labeling PrintNanny for their large format printers, which retail for 5-10k/unit. This will give me access to trusted/mature distribution networks while I'm building the business's credibility. I've talked to 3D printer manufacturers who've tried to build their own stuff in house, since the margins of software (90%+) are VERY attractive to a hardware biz with margins around 30%. The tl;dr is: 1) 3D printer manufacturers are only willing to invest in in-house software for their hardware, but most manufacturing shops use like 10-20 different pieces of hardware from 5+ vendors. No one wants to spend money supporting their competitor's hardware. 2) Shapeways (consumer and pro-sumer on-demand printing) is not where the money is. Compare to 2D printing: the overhead of print-on-demand t-shirts is not an attractive investment. Shapeways is the Rush Order Tees Dot Com of 3D printing. The REAL money in 3D printing comes from companies who are manufacturing drone parts for the US gov, misc plastics for OEM and after-market automotive industry, satellites, commercial plumbing, Ag Tech. Ask someone who works at John Deere their ballpark budget for domestic manufactured parts. The next 10 years of plastics and metal additive manufacturing on US soil are going to be important, and the stuff sci fi nerds like me used to dream electric dreams about

danielscrubs 4y ago

"There's a full generation of talented women software engineers who do not have computer science degrees." Yes? "I just happen to be one of them, and I worked my way into the top 1% of software engineers (by salary) in Silicon Valley. I've spent a lot of time wondering: how did this happen? How many more people out there just like me, and how do I invest in them NOW?" My wife is an IT consultant (frontend), the most recent customer actively asked for women developers so both of the women in the company got the job directly without any interviews (they had other gigs at the time). The IT consultant company is making bank, she is not (happened to me too so I switched industry). So maybe start an IT consultant company? Seems to be quite the market for it.

grepLeigh 4y ago
Hey, I appreciate that you're trying to be helpful - but a service business doesn't produce the return on time investment I want. It's kind of like recommending I buy franchises near an airport. i.e. super time intensive, but can be very rewarding in the right conditions! I used to run a WordPress services business before SquareSpace/Wix commoditized the space. If your wife decides to start an IT consulting company, tell her to shoot me an email.