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I'm curious if this is true as a general lesson for career growth. People who have been especially successful in their careers as e.g. software engineers, is t

I'm curious if this is true as a general lesson for career growth. People who have been especially successful in their careers as e.g. software engineers, is this also a good path?

diogenes4 3y ago
Hey they were just about to improve the world in ways nobody has ever dreamed of
iteria 3y ago
For me, I haven't had a problem specialized in healthcare regulation. I have a favorite stack, but my preferred stack is the ship of theseus if we start from the beginning of my care. That said, I've worked in all sorts of stacks. The only throughline is healthcare regulation with the occasion side steps into other highly regulated fields. I've spent my career automating bureaucracy. Employers just like that they don't have to explain their situation to me. As everyone knows tech stack is fast to pick up, but domain takes much later. I'm coming up on 15 years doing this. It's working for me thus far.
- tiffanyg 3y ago
  Ok, I'm racking my brain (and tried a couple of searches) ... but, I don't know that space almost at all, and I just can't come up with a way to "un-Mad Lib" "ship of theseus". Unless you're being more metaphorical ...?
  - smashed 3y ago
    He's saying the tech stack changes over time and gets updated. Probably going from on-prem to cloud with some saas sprinkled in, as many other industry. What does not change as rapidly is the strict regulations and particular needs of the healthcare domain.
    - iteria 3y ago
      Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Thank you for clarifying on my behalf
ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
Its a good way to get rich, but only if you use the knowledge to bootstrap a B2B product
- jamestimmins 3y ago
  Do you know of people who have done this? Where they built excessive knowledge in a single boring area that became a B2B product?
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
    Yes, your chances of building something thats actually going to make money are way higher. Most obvious ideas have been tried a million times. Its the smaller businesses relying on some random problem, charge 5k a year for it, get 100 customers, sell the business and semi retire.
  - 1letterunixname 3y ago
    Data scientists in insurance. Merging the fields of CS, decision support, and actuarial. Not a product per se, but consulting services and productish APIs and managed systems.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  B2B SaaS is not the only way. If it takes too long to get to market because of a refusal to take investment, then a venture can miss the timing and remain too small to be valuable. OTOH if a venture raises money it doesn't know what to do with (to accelerate things), grows costs without a strategy, and/or gives away too much equity, then it's also headed to crash into a reef. There are millions of professional class people who have "lifestyle" consulting and service businesses who make a living that's widely variable more so than a salary full-time job with an employer. A primary way (there is no "the way") to become richer is to have equity in something valuable, which is usually something that is difficult for others to perform and replicate, essential, usable, defensible, and likely to be profitable, either created by your team or your investees. Ownership isn't the game, it's the only game.
brabel 3y ago
It's bad advice in software. Software that's "boring" tends to be replaced with flashy new things. If you were an expert in JQery in 2010, unless you've learned the new frameworks you would be nearly unemployable today. I was an "expert" in OSGi, a Java framework... it went out of fashion in the early 2010's. My knowledge of that became nearly useless, the only "utility" I got out of it today is understanding modularity and dynamic services much better than I would otherwise (which can be frustrating though, as you see new flashy thhings making the same mistakes you've seen before, but try telling them that and they'll just call you a dinosaur who doesn't get it).
- keiferski 3y ago
  The Lindy Effect is in play here I think. That is, if a language has been around and in business use for a long time, it’s likely that it will be in the future. Stuff like jQuery was trendy and new at the time, so it’s not super surprising that it hasn’t been long-lived.

I'm curious if this is true as a general lesson for career growth. People who have been especially successful in their careers as e.g. software engineers, is this also a good path?

diogenes4 3y ago

Hey they were just about to improve the world in ways nobody has ever dreamed of

iteria 3y ago

For me, I haven't had a problem specialized in healthcare regulation. I have a favorite stack, but my preferred stack is the ship of theseus if we start from the beginning of my care. That said, I've worked in all sorts of stacks. The only throughline is healthcare regulation with the occasion side steps into other highly regulated fields. I've spent my career automating bureaucracy. Employers just like that they don't have to explain their situation to me. As everyone knows tech stack is fast to pick up, but domain takes much later. I'm coming up on 15 years doing this. It's working for me thus far.

tiffanyg 3y ago
Ok, I'm racking my brain (and tried a couple of searches) ... but, I don't know that space almost at all, and I just can't come up with a way to "un-Mad Lib" "ship of theseus". Unless you're being more metaphorical ...?
- smashed 3y ago
  He's saying the tech stack changes over time and gets updated. Probably going from on-prem to cloud with some saas sprinkled in, as many other industry. What does not change as rapidly is the strict regulations and particular needs of the healthcare domain.
  - iteria 3y ago
    Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Thank you for clarifying on my behalf

ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago

Its a good way to get rich, but only if you use the knowledge to bootstrap a B2B product

jamestimmins 3y ago
Do you know of people who have done this? Where they built excessive knowledge in a single boring area that became a B2B product?
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
  Yes, your chances of building something thats actually going to make money are way higher. Most obvious ideas have been tried a million times. Its the smaller businesses relying on some random problem, charge 5k a year for it, get 100 customers, sell the business and semi retire.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Data scientists in insurance. Merging the fields of CS, decision support, and actuarial. Not a product per se, but consulting services and productish APIs and managed systems.
1letterunixname 3y ago
B2B SaaS is not the only way. If it takes too long to get to market because of a refusal to take investment, then a venture can miss the timing and remain too small to be valuable. OTOH if a venture raises money it doesn't know what to do with (to accelerate things), grows costs without a strategy, and/or gives away too much equity, then it's also headed to crash into a reef. There are millions of professional class people who have "lifestyle" consulting and service businesses who make a living that's widely variable more so than a salary full-time job with an employer. A primary way (there is no "the way") to become richer is to have equity in something valuable, which is usually something that is difficult for others to perform and replicate, essential, usable, defensible, and likely to be profitable, either created by your team or your investees. Ownership isn't the game, it's the only game.

brabel 3y ago

It's bad advice in software. Software that's "boring" tends to be replaced with flashy new things. If you were an expert in JQery in 2010, unless you've learned the new frameworks you would be nearly unemployable today. I was an "expert" in OSGi, a Java framework... it went out of fashion in the early 2010's. My knowledge of that became nearly useless, the only "utility" I got out of it today is understanding modularity and dynamic services much better than I would otherwise (which can be frustrating though, as you see new flashy thhings making the same mistakes you've seen before, but try telling them that and they'll just call you a dinosaur who doesn't get it).

keiferski 3y ago
The Lindy Effect is in play here I think. That is, if a language has been around and in business use for a long time, it’s likely that it will be in the future. Stuff like jQuery was trendy and new at the time, so it’s not super surprising that it hasn’t been long-lived.