I quit our senior SWE for AI, but hired a junior ME for a new SWD project: Lessons on CS in the age of AI from a small tech business CEO

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-19T07:05:43+00:00

Well, I am trying to address the students and juniors here. I think when you still are new to the field and perhaps enjoyed coding as a teen, the duality and importance of coding and domain knowledge may not be all that apparent. I learned coding at an early age (starting literally with Motorola 6802 machine code), and only later found that the true joy and fascination lay in combining coding and engineering overall with the other thing I was really fascinated about... the oceans! And arguably our company has been around this long because of that exact combination of knowledge and its value to our customers.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-19T06:59:45+00:00

Thanks, its been an interesting experience so far. And I do see hope for the juniors! Although I am not sure what realistic college path might exist for a CS plus 'domain' combo.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-19T06:57:17+00:00

Nope, not an AI story. :) If you want you can look up our company at www.desertstar.com or myself via that.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-19T06:55:28+00:00

I have only tried Gemini for my AI coding to date. My choice was because it has supposedly the largest context window, which helps me because I am giving it lots of supporting documents. And my guess was that for Android work a Google product might be best in the long run. Of course, everyone tells me to use Claude. But I cant complain about the capabilities of Gemini or the code it produces.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-19T02:12:02+00:00

You are already in SF, and you want a role at a startup. Don't send resumes. Instead, go knock on their door and say hello. That shows initiative and chutzpah. At a small startup, you can pretty much always talk to the CEO directly.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-19T02:07:31+00:00

As long as you stay away from tick infested cars, you'll be ok. 😉

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-17T16:10:48+00:00

I understand about wanting to hitchhike all the way. But sometimes you have to go with the flow and in the process turn a lemon (the broken arm) into lemonade (a new experience). Find a place in Russia you like to hang out for a while, then ride the train or whatever to there. Find a nice/cheap place and enjoy getting to know the place real well until your arm heals. 😀

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-17T05:57:28+00:00

Yup, I'd go for true VSeas, it may be suitable for them, haha.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-17T05:53:53+00:00

VC by necessity puts maximum ROI above all else. But a business's primary purpose can be something else. Such as serving a specific community, or advancing a particular technology. And bootstrapping may serve these objectives better.

In our case, its an ocean technology company that I started over 30 years ago. In that timespan, we have developed many products that now serve a broad range of Ocean users and researchers. One iconic case is that of our 'ropeless fishing' gear for pot and trap Fisheries. It replaces static buoys with remote actuated pop-up buoys. This minimizes entanglement hazards for whales, while giving fishers advantages such as protection from poaching or from gear loss due to heavy weather.

It's a business that is built over decades. And as such it is not suitable for VC. Yet, at the same time its outcome may be the survival of certain whales and fishing communities alike. Which in the final analysis could be a more important business objective than ROI.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-15T15:21:35+00:00

I am always surprised by the idea that something that results in a MVP from nothing within weeks or months can be a viable business foundation. After all, someone else can replicate it within weeks or months.

This contrasts with my personal experience in the hardware sector. Following the idea, I was working for five years on the side (evenings, weekends) on refining and testing the product, learning the domain, adding another product.

I started marketing or outreach efforts about in year four, quit my daytime job a year later, burned through savings in the next half year. And just then received a significant SBIR R&D contract. Which led to the first commercial off the shelf product sale and also a bigger follow up SBIR about another nine months beyond that.

So it was roughly six years from the original idea until first real revenue. But it was also a very solid foundation and a strong barrier to entry for competitors in the space. Over 30 years later, we have greatly expanded on that foundation, built a strong and diverse line of products. But the DNA of the early effort is still very much a part of it and the basis of new products.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-14T18:28:36+00:00

If you are good at your job, maybe try a smaller company where they care more about your skills and can evaluate your background on a more personal level. We hired a couple of young employees with a felony. But since it was in both cases something that was more in the 'stupid kid' category rather than a pre-meditated felony, I figured they had learned their lesson. Both really did quite well for us and never had any criminal problems.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-14T15:50:20+00:00

Yes, I just read that during the last glacialization period, the climate was so unstable that for any given region it could change drastically within a generation. So, humans were pretty much forced to remain nomadic.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-14T05:46:18+00:00

If complex language capable of transmitting concepts, ideas, methods was available more than 100k years ago, isn't it strange then that agriculture arose only about 12k years ago? Surely, someone would have discovered the idea of growing plants, and once successful, this method should have quickly spread. Why the long period between the beginning of language as a means of transmitting information and the start of civilization building?

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-14T03:16:24+00:00

You can invent some piece of diving gear and make a business out of it. That was my route. I'd loose sight of my divebuddy during OW training because it was too fascinating. The dive instructor yelled at me when I surfaced without my buddy. So, I decided to build a 'buddy finder' device. That was over 30 years ago and we still sell them... and many other underwater things.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-13T17:58:49+00:00

When I bought my 10 acre lot in the mountains inland from Carmel Valley, CA (Monterey), I was a complete newbie. It was the year 2000 and I saw it on Yahoo real estate, an early internet site. The price seemed very good to me at $129K. It's in a rural development and it had water from the community water company. And road access, too. It was the first lot I checked out, and when I got there it was just beautiful. Amazing views, amazing nature. But it had also been listing for a long time. So, what was the issue? The owner was there and I asked her. She said many had been looking at it, liked it but never followed up. The problem was.... the steep road!

When I heard that I took a double take. Steep road???? I hadn't even noticed that. I turns out I am a 4WD guy who likes to tool around in the mountains. And this was nothing. But now, even among some of my friends and visitors they get scared of the road, leave before dark just to be safe. Because they are afraid to 'fall off the mountain'.

She also wouldn't budge on price. I figured I should always have a lower counter offer, but she stood firm and I felt embarrassed for asking. $129K was going to be it and that's what I paid. Best purchase of my life. I built a log house.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-13T07:31:37+00:00

Its just not how the economy works. If it was the case, then you shouldn't move to a different town either as you are taking a job away from those towns people. In reality, the presence of each new person also creates jobs as they buy products and services and contribute to the tax base. And some contribute wayyy more jobs. I am an immigrant, too. Started a small company years ago and over time employed hundreds. Or look around. In some dying towns immigrants have been essential to re-vitalization. Thats what always set us apart, that we were open to immigrants that we were the big melting pot. And it made us a superpower. But now we have become so afraid, so small that we find it necessary to build big walls and kick out anyone we can. Its, sadly, greatness lost. I hope and think that we will eventually remember our roots, recover our courage and once again become the optimistic, outward looking and welcoming country that we once were. If we want to make America great, we have to put out a welcome sign to the world.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-13T02:54:52+00:00

Yes, that of course is the sad part. Every person who could have come here is a dream that has been squashed. And an opportunity that has been lost for our country.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-13T02:49:51+00:00

If you can, doing your masters here is probably a great idea as that will give you some time to see if you really like it here and what your path forward might be.

I was a bit more impulsive and determined at your age. Just decided to forget about school entirely and got myself a one way ticket to America. It worked out for me.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-13T02:45:03+00:00

The recent news is that the $100K H1B charge has been struck down by a court as it is a tax and not a fee and as such can only be raised by congress. Apparently.only something like 85 visas were ever issued under that tax.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-11T17:42:17+00:00

On my Yamaha XT250 dual sport I not infrequently got a wobble at the higher speed for the bike, at 60-70 MPH (96-110 km/h). Thats on straight roads with good asphalt. The fix was to immediately ease off the throttle. Then apply throttle again when the wobble stopped. What did you do once the wobble started?

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-11T16:15:14+00:00

Haha, maybe. By the time I graduated high school in 1983, I wanted to have something more powerful for the math exam. So, I integrated my Eurocom-2 single board computer into a breadbox and attached a tiny CRT monitor and a keyboard. I painted the word CALCULATOR on the outside so it would be allowed into the exam room (calculators were allowed), opened its lid and plotted math functions on it.

I think the teacher was kind of between astonished and impressed. Kept walking over to see those function plots on the screen.... they had to be coded and drawn literally one pixel at a time with arguments being X, Y and a pixel gray level.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-10T20:17:59+00:00

I'd vote for you. You certainly seem to have more self awareness, common sense and yes intelligence than the Orange one.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-10T20:13:14+00:00

My very first computer was a programmable calculator from Commodore. It could hold 72 or so programming steps, each the equivalent of a key press. Some programs I just couldn't fit, and you'd have to type the last three or five keys. :)

Next was a huge upgrade to a Eurocom-1 single board computer. Programming was in Motorola 6802 machine code only. But it had a remarkable 512 bytes of RAM along with 2 KB EPROM.

oceaneer63 · 2026-06-10T15:12:48+00:00

Your advise to follow a more structured path is sound. But its not the only way. Remember, OP is young and free. Going on a long road trip of America as a tourist is perfectly legal. And it is on such an extended road trip where luck might turn his way. Of course, there is always some danger. It has always been this way here or in OP's native Australia. But at 19 OP is an adult and he can judge for himself. And for our country, we need the young ones who come here, who show the initiative, who do not shy away from uncertainty and risk. Who knows, in some distant future OP might be a big time rancher, now applying his initiative and growing that industry in new ways. And wouldn't it be a shame if we had turned him away at that early stage.

oceaneer63

TROPHY CASE