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?
68 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadSame workplace for 25 years, but different engineering roles.
But that's a dream for other people who know how to make it happen. I take work where I can get it.
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.
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.
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.
What kinds of things do you do in your political communications job? Sounds very interesting!
On my team in particular, I'm the team member with the strongest tech and quantitative skills, so I also am the one who collects and presents metrics + owns relationships with a lot of the service providers we have relationships with.
It's not my favorite job I've done (too much 'asap' work and not enough thinking work), but I took the job because I knew marketing and branding was what I was weakest in when I was working for myself, and I wanted to learn about marketing while still having a roof over my head, so I took a comms job.
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.
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.
Can you recommend any starting points if I would like to learn more?
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.
Source: Am German, have worked with an org that wrote a grant proposal for an ML R&D product for funding from a federal state programme.
You'll find no lack of these services if you look around. They do check what you're bringing to them as they obv. also only invest if they see a chance of a project being funded and take a small percentage or fixed fee for managing the process.
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.
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.
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.
My plan is to bring to market therapies for age-related disease, probably a crosslink breaker for skin. We’ll see if it happens...
Also, what drives your interest in being a developer?
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.