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Do you have any advice or suggestions for college or graduate students who are not in industry, but interested in producing “stable boring” software business?

Do you have any advice or suggestions for college or graduate students who are not in industry, but interested in producing “stable boring” software business? Thank you. Added: With background in math and (theoretical) computer science.

pphysch 3y ago
I was trained as a mathematician but now focus mainly on developing "stable boring" software. Note that "stable boring" software is almost never "correct" from an academic perspective. The software is stable not because it has achieved theoretical perfection, but because it has been hardened through countless cycles of iteration, debugging, and customer feedback. The "boring" parts. My #1 advice would be to get a foothold ASAP. University IT/other IT departments can be a good starting point. Even if you don't start out as a SWE, any sort of systems-facing role will get you valuable domain expertise and you will 100% have opportunities to automate whatever work you are doing and eventually graduate into full-time development positions.
- hedgehog0 3y ago
  Thank you for the advice. I’m in graduate school, so I have contributed to software like SageMath and hopefully Julia in the near future. Recently I’m reading up combinatorial optimisation and how it can be applied.
mrelectric 3y ago
Product market fit then TDD.
- hedgehog0 3y ago
  Test Driven Dev?
  - asu_thomas 3y ago
    [dead]
satvikpendem 3y ago
https://indiehackers.com https://indiehackers.com would be my first resource, their podcasts especially, rather than their community posts.
- hedgehog0 3y ago
  Yeah I heard of this website, but never read it. Just saw the podcasts, they seem pretty nice.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    In my experience the post quality has been down-trending for a while, but the podcasts are top-tier. Definitely check it out. I also recommend the books: - Company of One - Zero to Sold - Million Dollar One Person Business
    - hedgehog0 3y ago
      Will try the podcasts. Thank you for the recommendations. https://howtobeafounder.com/ https://howtobeafounder.com/ This one seems to be a new book. Have you read it? If so, what do you think?
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        I looked into that book, looks like it's really for venture backed companies trying to form a founding team. I'd recommend that you instead look up micro-SaaS, where you just target making $10k+ monthly recurring revenue and be set, rather than going on the VC treadmill and trying to raise capital, hire a team, etc which is often overkill for first time founders. Rob Walling coined that term initially through his conference on it called MicroConf, he has a new book called The SaaS Playbook [0] which I'd recommend, he has a sample PDF here [1]. His older book Start Small, Stay Small [2] is also quite good. But to start off with a free resource, Jason Cohen's video on designing a bootstrapped business can't be beat [3]. [0] https://saasplaybook.com/ https://saasplaybook.com/ [1] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63974bca690bb40f1adc6c36/t/63ff59bced36117751ef063f/1677679043323/the-saas-playbook-sample.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63974bca690bb40f1adc6... [2] https://startsmall.com/ https://startsmall.com/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw
grvdrm 3y ago
Insurance isn’t going anywhere. I’m in it. We produce and need tons of stable, boring software.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Are they still RTO or are any remote? I was reading about how most are now mandating RTO or hybrid.
  - grvdrm 3y ago
    Plenty of remote, especially if you lean towards the newer/tech-ish or tech-forward companies that are start-ups or forward-thinking legacy-structure companies. One thought for you: RTO isn't so bad in this instance. Lots of insurance knowledge captured in the heads of older folks that prefer face-to-face. Their knowledge is the hardest to replicate but the most useful to system builders who really should know the business reasoning behind their efforts.

pphysch 3y ago

I was trained as a mathematician but now focus mainly on developing "stable boring" software. Note that "stable boring" software is almost never "correct" from an academic perspective. The software is stable not because it has achieved theoretical perfection, but because it has been hardened through countless cycles of iteration, debugging, and customer feedback. The "boring" parts. My #1 advice would be to get a foothold ASAP. University IT/other IT departments can be a good starting point. Even if you don't start out as a SWE, any sort of systems-facing role will get you valuable domain expertise and you will 100% have opportunities to automate whatever work you are doing and eventually graduate into full-time development positions.

hedgehog0 3y ago
Thank you for the advice. I’m in graduate school, so I have contributed to software like SageMath and hopefully Julia in the near future. Recently I’m reading up combinatorial optimisation and how it can be applied.

mrelectric 3y ago

Product market fit then TDD.

hedgehog0 3y ago
Test Driven Dev?
- asu_thomas 3y ago
  [dead]

satvikpendem 3y ago

https://indiehackers.com https://indiehackers.com would be my first resource, their podcasts especially, rather than their community posts.

hedgehog0 3y ago
Yeah I heard of this website, but never read it. Just saw the podcasts, they seem pretty nice.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  In my experience the post quality has been down-trending for a while, but the podcasts are top-tier. Definitely check it out. I also recommend the books: - Company of One - Zero to Sold - Million Dollar One Person Business
  - hedgehog0 3y ago
    Will try the podcasts. Thank you for the recommendations. https://howtobeafounder.com/ https://howtobeafounder.com/ This one seems to be a new book. Have you read it? If so, what do you think?
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      I looked into that book, looks like it's really for venture backed companies trying to form a founding team. I'd recommend that you instead look up micro-SaaS, where you just target making $10k+ monthly recurring revenue and be set, rather than going on the VC treadmill and trying to raise capital, hire a team, etc which is often overkill for first time founders. Rob Walling coined that term initially through his conference on it called MicroConf, he has a new book called The SaaS Playbook [0] which I'd recommend, he has a sample PDF here [1]. His older book Start Small, Stay Small [2] is also quite good. But to start off with a free resource, Jason Cohen's video on designing a bootstrapped business can't be beat [3]. [0] https://saasplaybook.com/ https://saasplaybook.com/ [1] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63974bca690bb40f1adc6c36/t/63ff59bced36117751ef063f/1677679043323/the-saas-playbook-sample.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63974bca690bb40f1adc6... [2] https://startsmall.com/ https://startsmall.com/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw

grvdrm 3y ago

Insurance isn’t going anywhere. I’m in it. We produce and need tons of stable, boring software.

satvikpendem 3y ago
Are they still RTO or are any remote? I was reading about how most are now mandating RTO or hybrid.
- grvdrm 3y ago
  Plenty of remote, especially if you lean towards the newer/tech-ish or tech-forward companies that are start-ups or forward-thinking legacy-structure companies. One thought for you: RTO isn't so bad in this instance. Lots of insurance knowledge captured in the heads of older folks that prefer face-to-face. Their knowledge is the hardest to replicate but the most useful to system builders who really should know the business reasoning behind their efforts.