SoftwareEducator
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- Jan 23, 2021
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Hello all! I am a software developer by trade, and I want to teach advanced software development material to other software engineers. There is an abundance of material online to teach people "how to code", but almost all of the material that I've come across is for building contrived, introductory applications.
If there are any incongruencies, inefficiencies, or gaps in the ideas I share below, please feel free to call me out or question them. Frankly, I'm still putting together the details of what exactly it is that I want to do, but I realize that I can provide a ton of value, do meaningful work, and make lots of money with the skills I've learned the past few years.
Background
I was never a big fan of the SCRIPTED lifestyle, not since I was thirteen or fourteen. In college, I studied software development because it was pretty cool and because I figured with a skillset like that, I could one day find the flexibility to create the flexible lifestyle I want. I had a couple of jobs that I legitimately enjoyed, and I even enjoyed my current job once upon a time, at least when I first started it. However, I'm becoming incredibly fed up with spending the most productive and valuable times of my life building software for an organization that I believe to be soulless and selfish.
I specialize in serverless cloud application development (this means building modern software using modern cloud services that do not require maintenance of web servers). Over the past few years, I learned a great deal about building reliable, scaleable, easy to modify, inexpensive, secure, and high-performing software in this space. I want to teach this knowledge to other software engineers, but I am certainly open to similar ideas that may be more effective.
For years, I have wanted to save up a fat chunk of money and stop working for someone else so that I could pursue projects and ventures that truly interest me and actually impact people's lives for the better. However, I had been pretty financially irresponsible pretty much until COVID started affecting the world at large. Now, I am finally beginning to reach a financial position where I can have a reasonable cushion to quit my job and try to make money doing things that are meaningful to me.
Once upon a time, I was lazy and would start projects and never finish. I'm still kinda sorta lazy about stuff like that, but I am slowly getting better about actually accomplishing the things I set out to do. One year ago, I took time off work to work on personal projects. I ended up not finishing anything, and I came to the conclusion (at that time) that I should just keep at my job. However, very recently, I took off work again to work on personal projects, and I accomplished much more, including finishing and sharing a significant project I had been talking about for a long time. By the end of my time off, I realized that I can actually benefit from not working if I productively use my time, a skill which I have improved since the previous attempt.
Books
I have not read The Millionaire Fastlane yet, but I started reading Unscripted on Monday and I'm about 70% of the way through and counting. The first part of Unscripted honestly cut me really deep, because it magnified my festering resentment of corporate life with great detail into exactly how incredibly soul-sucking, dehumanizing, and fatal SCRIPTED life is.
Interests
I am particularly interested in teaching other software engineers cloud development skills, but I am open to other ideas that can basically use everything I've learned about these application development skills to provide meaningful positive impact to others and earn money while doing so. I am friends with a few less experienced software developers that I enjoy teaching and guiding from time to time. I do that for free, but I truly enjoy the experience of guiding these other folks and leading them to either learn something they would not have found otherwise (at least not as quickly) or build something new.
I'm considering doing software consulting to speed up my ability to quit my job, but I honestly would rather not do that because I believe it can easily end up feeling just as soulless as working a 9-5 for a meaningless organization if I'm not careful.
Current understanding of the market and approach ideas
While there is an abundance of free and very cheap material online to learn "how to build X" in software, the vast majority of those tutorials and courses build very simple applications and do not discuss advanced techniques you will need to build proper software as a real-world software engineer. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with those tutorials necessarily, but in my opinion (and based on some observation), it would be incredibly beneficial for software engineers who want to go beyond the basics to have more comprehensive guides for building advanced software.
About a year and a half ago, I discovered that there is a whole segment of gainfully employed software engineers (folks who are not learning to code to get their first junior developer job) who want to learn new skills, whether to change jobs, get a promotion, or simply out of interest. I gave an introductory talk to about ten friends and acquaintances in this segment about serverless API development (to oversimplify, how to create a back end for an application without running web servers) and they were interested in the subject matter. I sat on it for a while, but right now I am currently working on building a well-architected software application to serve as a tutorial from start to finish for developers who want to learn cloud application development, including advanced techniques that are rarely mentioned in online courses and tutorials.
My aim would be to sell this information in an e-book or a (cheap) online course to software engineers, but I think it would be beneficial to provide paid mentoring sessions as well or even workshops. Honestly, I have not explored the paid mentoring or workshop ideas, but I definitely do not want to close my eyes to those because they can potentially be even better for my bottom line than just selling information impersonally.
EDIT: A quick Google search shows several services for online monthly course subscriptions between $29/month and $39/month offering far more content than I could offer as an individual (at least, at a glance). It's a little discouraging, but I'd prefer to work the angle where I provide individual and small group guidance, so on Rabby's suggestion, I am looking to see if people would be interested in that.
If there are any incongruencies, inefficiencies, or gaps in the ideas I share below, please feel free to call me out or question them. Frankly, I'm still putting together the details of what exactly it is that I want to do, but I realize that I can provide a ton of value, do meaningful work, and make lots of money with the skills I've learned the past few years.
Background
I was never a big fan of the SCRIPTED lifestyle, not since I was thirteen or fourteen. In college, I studied software development because it was pretty cool and because I figured with a skillset like that, I could one day find the flexibility to create the flexible lifestyle I want. I had a couple of jobs that I legitimately enjoyed, and I even enjoyed my current job once upon a time, at least when I first started it. However, I'm becoming incredibly fed up with spending the most productive and valuable times of my life building software for an organization that I believe to be soulless and selfish.
I specialize in serverless cloud application development (this means building modern software using modern cloud services that do not require maintenance of web servers). Over the past few years, I learned a great deal about building reliable, scaleable, easy to modify, inexpensive, secure, and high-performing software in this space. I want to teach this knowledge to other software engineers, but I am certainly open to similar ideas that may be more effective.
For years, I have wanted to save up a fat chunk of money and stop working for someone else so that I could pursue projects and ventures that truly interest me and actually impact people's lives for the better. However, I had been pretty financially irresponsible pretty much until COVID started affecting the world at large. Now, I am finally beginning to reach a financial position where I can have a reasonable cushion to quit my job and try to make money doing things that are meaningful to me.
Once upon a time, I was lazy and would start projects and never finish. I'm still kinda sorta lazy about stuff like that, but I am slowly getting better about actually accomplishing the things I set out to do. One year ago, I took time off work to work on personal projects. I ended up not finishing anything, and I came to the conclusion (at that time) that I should just keep at my job. However, very recently, I took off work again to work on personal projects, and I accomplished much more, including finishing and sharing a significant project I had been talking about for a long time. By the end of my time off, I realized that I can actually benefit from not working if I productively use my time, a skill which I have improved since the previous attempt.
Books
I have not read The Millionaire Fastlane yet, but I started reading Unscripted on Monday and I'm about 70% of the way through and counting. The first part of Unscripted honestly cut me really deep, because it magnified my festering resentment of corporate life with great detail into exactly how incredibly soul-sucking, dehumanizing, and fatal SCRIPTED life is.
Interests
I am particularly interested in teaching other software engineers cloud development skills, but I am open to other ideas that can basically use everything I've learned about these application development skills to provide meaningful positive impact to others and earn money while doing so. I am friends with a few less experienced software developers that I enjoy teaching and guiding from time to time. I do that for free, but I truly enjoy the experience of guiding these other folks and leading them to either learn something they would not have found otherwise (at least not as quickly) or build something new.
I'm considering doing software consulting to speed up my ability to quit my job, but I honestly would rather not do that because I believe it can easily end up feeling just as soulless as working a 9-5 for a meaningless organization if I'm not careful.
Current understanding of the market and approach ideas
While there is an abundance of free and very cheap material online to learn "how to build X" in software, the vast majority of those tutorials and courses build very simple applications and do not discuss advanced techniques you will need to build proper software as a real-world software engineer. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with those tutorials necessarily, but in my opinion (and based on some observation), it would be incredibly beneficial for software engineers who want to go beyond the basics to have more comprehensive guides for building advanced software.
About a year and a half ago, I discovered that there is a whole segment of gainfully employed software engineers (folks who are not learning to code to get their first junior developer job) who want to learn new skills, whether to change jobs, get a promotion, or simply out of interest. I gave an introductory talk to about ten friends and acquaintances in this segment about serverless API development (to oversimplify, how to create a back end for an application without running web servers) and they were interested in the subject matter. I sat on it for a while, but right now I am currently working on building a well-architected software application to serve as a tutorial from start to finish for developers who want to learn cloud application development, including advanced techniques that are rarely mentioned in online courses and tutorials.
My aim would be to sell this information in an e-book or a (cheap) online course to software engineers, but I think it would be beneficial to provide paid mentoring sessions as well or even workshops. Honestly, I have not explored the paid mentoring or workshop ideas, but I definitely do not want to close my eyes to those because they can potentially be even better for my bottom line than just selling information impersonally.
EDIT: A quick Google search shows several services for online monthly course subscriptions between $29/month and $39/month offering far more content than I could offer as an individual (at least, at a glance). It's a little discouraging, but I'd prefer to work the angle where I provide individual and small group guidance, so on Rabby's suggestion, I am looking to see if people would be interested in that.
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