[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What do you do for a living?
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Ask HN: What do you do for a living?
I've always been curious about the demography behind this social
network. After all, not _everyone_ who 's a "hacker" is in a tech
startup or cybersecurity, right? So, what do you do for a living?
Is it the culmination of a series of interesting jobs all over the
map, or have you had a Steady Eddie job for a decade or two? And,
more abstractly, what do you _want_ to do? Are you living the
dream, are you chasing a dream, or have you given up on chasing
that dream?
Author : Phileosopher
Score : 29 points
Date : 2022-04-11 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
| mrlonglong wrote:
| VB code monkey using VS2017. At least it pays the bills, no
| stressing. Been on this gig nearly 10 years.
| testmasterflex wrote:
| Bathroom privacy device startup: https://Loodio.com
| sweuder wrote:
| I work at a 10'000+ acre private nature reserve. I maintain and
| upgrade our hiking and ski trail network, all of our equipment,
| vehicles, a dozen rental cottages and a whole bunch of campsites.
|
| Debating between going back to my bio school background via
| probably bioinformatics but for now really like working outside
| with my hands. Starting to build custom furniture and repair
| equipment on the side.
|
| Cant imagine doing one type of job for more than handful of
| years, at least for now.
| p0d wrote:
| I am a part-time lecturer with a side project who used to work in
| the IT industry. Living the dream for me is having a good
| relationship with my family, a little more money than I need and
| good health.
| mmmuhd wrote:
| I am an independent software engineer and Solar & Energy
| Efficiency Engineer in Nigeria.
| [deleted]
| jseliger wrote:
| Consulting: http://www.seliger.com.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I wish there was a service like this for Germany. There's lots
| of research grant money, especially for digitalization, AI, and
| wind energy, but almost no small or medium-sized company knows
| how to apply for it.
| samh748 wrote:
| I work a warehouse job at a large university bookstore, packing
| and unpacking boxes. I regularly work with textbooks and academic
| books, which is awesome (it's what got me interested in so many
| disciplines! [0]). The pay isn't the greatest, but the university
| has great employee benefits and job security.
|
| I'm on HN because it seems to be the only place with cool nerdy
| people who aren't afraid to be honest and critical while being
| generous in sharing their good-will :)
|
| Re dream job: I'm been talking about this endlessly on HN
| already, but I'm currently working on a _very ambitious_ writing
| project [1] which will hopefully pave way to some interesting
| possibilities! Though to be frank, I 'll probably stay working at
| the bookstore for a very very long time.
|
| Btw thank you Phileosopher for asking this question! I've been
| super curious as well. :)
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928105 [1]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30976497
| mangoTangoBango wrote:
| I'm doing a PhD in biology right now at a large university in the
| southern United States, interested in biogerontology.
|
| My plan is to bring to market therapies for age-related disease,
| probably a crosslink breaker for skin. We'll see if it happens...
| xook wrote:
| Run of the mill lab tech. Wish I had the privilege of remote work
| so I could focus on family instead of being gone for 10+ hours a
| day.
|
| But that's a dream for other people who know how to make it
| happen. I take work where I can get it.
| labarilem wrote:
| CTO, Co-Founder of an italian startup working with AR and VR.
| t-3 wrote:
| I never had a "dream" or anything to chase, so I don't. There's
| plenty of work for those that enjoy it, and three hots and a cot
| with plenty of books is no punishment at all for me.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I'm in political communications, so I'm definitely one of the
| more unconventional people on here career wise. That said, I've
| been kicking around HN since its founding (under different UNs)
| and at that time I hadn't started a career yet. (I learned web
| development + programming as a kid, hence why I was hanging out
| here).
|
| I initially wanted to be an academic librarian and got an MLIS,
| but I was diagnosed with MS my last semester of school so that
| altered my plans, to say the least.
|
| I don't really have a dream job, but what I do have is a growing
| list of pre-reqs a job and organization has to have before I'll
| work for them. I won't work a job where my work makes the world a
| worse place or where I'm disrespected. I won't work for
| hypocrites. At this point, it's looking more and more like I'll
| end up going back to freelance work just for the ability to
| refuse clients I don't want to work for. Right now, my anxiety
| and risk-tolerance are preventing that; I need to work on my
| mental health first.
| samh748 wrote:
| Sorry to hear about your diagnosis with MS. Working on your
| health, mental and physical, is definitely critical here.
|
| What kinds of things do you do in your political communications
| job? Sounds very interesting!
| cupofpython wrote:
| my day job is a Business Analyst for a Project Management (QAQC
| specialty) small business. Low pay, but lots of freedom, and I
| get to learn all of the ins and outs of business to business
| contract work, especially with the government. Price estimation,
| picking out what is worth bidding on, sizing up the competition
| for each bid, general research about all sorts of engineering
| topics and operations stuff.
| djpr wrote:
| I am a foresight practitioner (otherwise known as a 'futurist')
| in the policy making space. I am a member of two organizations
| that focus on applying foresight in policy making space, one with
| a focus on intergenerational fairness and another on
| participatory futures (civic engagement & foresight).
|
| Clients include the full run of international organizations, e.g.
| UNICEF, UNDP, and so on, and international foundations.
|
| We're not in the business of predictions or focus on techno-
| solutionisms, rather we help policymakers and organizations
| understand different ways social change can unfold and impact
| them and help them build strategies that navigate around these
| changes.
|
| I like what I do and feels it has high social impact. I just wish
| it paid better and wouldn't mind working with a long-term fund or
| VC as an additional side gig to make that happen.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| "we help policymakers and organizations understand different
| ways social change can unfold and impact them and help them
| build strategies that navigate around these changes."
|
| Can you recommend any starting points if I would like to learn
| more?
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I teach high school English. I appreciate that I am able to wake
| up every day and live my values, but I believe my time in the
| classroom is coming to an end.
|
| I'm quietly connecting with friends and acquaintances that work
| in tech to explore what new door to open (UX/UXR, B2B Sales,
| Account Management, Project Management), but I won't actively
| begin pursuing a new position until July 1.
|
| That said, if anyone is willing to discuss pathways - email is in
| my profile.
| aceki wrote:
| I've been thinking of pursuing a career in secondary education
| --what was your experience like, and what is prompting you to
| leave? Personally I struggle to see myself working in the
| private sector, but teaching as of late seems especially
| challenging.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Send me an email. Happy to share some thoughts.
| reify wrote:
| [deleted]
| avgDev wrote:
| I am an IC developing things in .Net Core MVC and now Blazor for
| a manufacturing company. I'm the only dev, compensation is decent
| and I work whenever I want for the most part.
|
| I like puzzles, so will most likely end up interviewing at FAANG
| at some point. I think leetcode/hackerrank is a bit annoying but
| if I can double my compensation, it isn't a big deal.
|
| My main focus is my toddler though and just enjoying life so I am
| maximizing for free time.
| runjake wrote:
| I overcome tough technical challenges.
|
| Same workplace for 25 years, but different engineering roles.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Recently we've been doing "ghost" AI research and product
| development, meaning our customer will afterwards pretend that
| their in-house R&D team came up with it. I'd say it's close to my
| dream job because it's fully remote, bleeding edge tech, weekly
| varying tasks, and I just like getting lost in math papers.
|
| And yes, it's the culmination of a series of interesting jobs all
| over the map. As a teen, I started doing what I like and then
| later I started helping people that asked me for help. I became a
| startup CEO more or less by accident.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| I am a lawyer, working in finance. So, really nothing to do with
| tech. I have an interest in programming and other hacker-y topics
| which is why I'm here.
|
| I kind of ended up in my career at random. When I first decided
| to go into law I never thought I would end up working in finance.
| I like my job (most of the time) but I have often wondered why I
| didn't go into software development instead. One reason, I think,
| is that it's easier to do programming as a hobby than law, so
| this way I get to explore two very distinct disciplines.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| It's a really interesting time to be working at the
| intersection of law, tech, and finance, if you're following the
| cryptocurrency space at all.
|
| Even if you don't like or have an interest in cryptocurrency (I
| think there are legitimate and compelling arguments to dislike
| it), the questions it raises about decentralized ownership and
| decision-making, and cybersecurity ethics/law in open systems
| where participants have agreed to the code as contract are just
| so cutting-edge. To my knowledge there hasn't been a successful
| prosecution of someone who's exploited a bug in an open-source
| smart contract yet, though it looks like this will be tested
| soon with the Indexed Finance hacker.
| reureu wrote:
| Infectious disease epidemiologist, but formerly data scientist in
| health tech. I'm really happy with my career currently, but I
| think some day I want to go back to direct service--- maybe
| something like a case manager or youth worker or similar. But
| part-time and only after I feel totally financially secure.
| 97s wrote:
| Starbucks Barista for Insurance, go America! Run my own online
| business selling high end labels to weddings and other venues.
|
| I am pretty happy with my life balance. I have 3 kids, who are
| all wonderful. I love going to my 20 hour barista job socializing
| and talking to young people and encouraging them to follow their
| passions. The business is great too, growing like crazy and its
| fun to use my economics and tech background to actually drive
| business results for myself.
| adg001 wrote:
| I can't neither confirm nor deny doing what people think I do.
| dcz_self wrote:
| I do actually work for a tech startup (Purism). Been bouncing
| from one to another mostly interesting job for a few years before
| that.
|
| I want to continue trying to make the world better, including
| sustaining myself through Open Source. Pretty much the dream.
|
| The remaining piece of the dream is to challenge/indulge myself
| and build a bike computer (jazda.org).
|
| If the world hadn't been on the brink of multiple crises I'd be
| doing basic science though.
| Hail_Psyche wrote:
| Just to give some wacky perspective: I'm a biotech student,
| nothing to do with hacking. Wanted to be a writer when I was
| younger, even. I just like to fiddle with my PC when I get bored
| and keep up with our crazy cyber world, mostly to keep myself
| safe in it. Brand new to all of it, really. Scratched the surface
| for a long time and slowly beginning to break it.
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(page generated 2022-04-11 23:02 UTC)