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

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.

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!

Lots of things. I work for a neutral research org (so not a politician or a political party), which definitely impacts my experience. We field media inquiries, set up interviews (either with experts on staff or, if it's something general, one of us will do it- I've given talks/Q and As on local elections and stuff like that), send out newsletters, write copy for our offerings and gather contact information for people who would be interested, create graphics, answer questions from the public, manage our social media feeds, run/host webinars, etc.

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.

I write software (usually) and technical manuals (sometimes) for a living. I started out doing both of those things at Apple in the late 1980s.

I spent 10 years at Apple and then six years at a startup that was acquired by Cisco.

Then I developed a chronic illness that took me out of the workforce and bankrupted me.

After getting a diagnosis (after two years of trying) and adjusting to my new reality, I got my health under control, starting working again--mostly as a consultant--and gradually reconstructed my life to fit the new circumstances.

I've been working as a consultant for about sixteen years now, and life is good. I like my work. I live alone except for my elderly mother. My children are grown and our relationship is good. In my spare time I write stories and songs and software and draw pictures. Despite my health-related bankruptcy lo, these many years ago, I am now rich, not in the sense of owning a lot of capital, but in the sense of having a good and satisfying life and expenses that are less than my income.

I've done a bunch of work that I find interesting. Over the past couple of years, it's been helping an engineering company with software development, AI, and product development. The work is interesting and my colleagues are congenial.

Am I living the dream? Yes, I think so. At least I'm living a modest, reality-adjusted old man's version of the dream, and I'm pretty happy with it. I expect to keep doing it as long as possible, until nobody wants my help anymore or I fall over.

It's bullshit that a medical issue can do that much damage to your financial health. Love this country but fucking hate how ruthless healthcare can be.

Glad that you're well!

This is TMI due to the max, but it illustrates and I’m describing, it’s cost a good amount in opportunity cost too but whatever.

So I had IBS aka colon spasms to a debilitating degree and went to a couple highly-regarded doctors via my insurance including Kaiser and Blue cross in Seattle, but they said I was ok, and didn’t even do a referral to a gastroenterologist and just did blood panels. This destroyed my life and my relationship with my gf for a couple years and who I thought I was going to propose to, then it just mostly stopped.

I’ll have the odd spasm now and again but nothing like it was from 2017-2021. Now I’m in the other side of the country and it doesn’t bother me like wtf it just went away.

I’ve been screened for crohn's disease and ulcritive colitis and nothing came up. Sometimes our bodies are..strange.

> Love this country but fucking hate how ruthless healthcare can be.

Vote for representatives who want free healthcare.

Let me know if you're ever looking for another congenial colleague. You seem awesome. Glad to hear you're doing well.

Thanks. Always looking for colleagues for this or that. If you mean for a paying gig, there might be work for a Common Lisper sometime soonish at my Day Job, but not right away (and the timing is a bit uncertain).

No worries, my skillset is kind of a mishmash. I'm a former software engineer cum tax attorney that straddles the line between tax/law and tech. Paying gigs not as important as interesting projects and (as you say) congenial colleagues.

Like I say, always on the lookout for possible collaborators. Areas of possible connection are writing stories, recording music, creating art, building software (usually in Lisp, because that’s what I like) and creating and playing games with elements of world building or storytelling.

I'm working on a nonfiction book on a region near me here in NJ. Would love to pick your brain regarding writing (and anything else). Got an email? Thanks!

You can mail me at mikel@evins.net

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.

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.

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.

My background is in ecology & evolutionary biology, and I think your job is wild. ;) Many of my (ex-)colleagues spend a lot of time camping in various places doing fieldwork. Do you spend a lot of time with cool animals/plants at the reserve?

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.

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.

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.

Send me an email. Happy to share some thoughts.

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.

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.

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.

“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?

I have had a series of accounts on HN since it was "Startup News"(I make a new one every so often just for the sake of discarding old attachments). I did game development for several years out of college. It went from steady job to odd jobs to no job, which I can see now as a result of the market cycle in games creating momentary, unstable opportunities - it's notorious as a short career path. I considered doing something else in tech and startups, but I managed to torpedo every interview, mostly because I was not submitting to the rules of the technical interview game, and had been feeling increasingly disillusioned. I really didn't know what I was going to do in 2016-2017, but then came the 2017 crypto bull run, which felt like a sudden salvation.

Now I pay my bills through holdings that were initially built 9 years ago off a single $5000 investment. It is not an eye-popping multi-millions portfolio, but my lifestyle is cheap and I can generally afford anything I want. My college study was in economics, and while finance isn't my most favorite topic in the world, my hand has been forced to use what I know to grasp in that direction and predict what the next steps are in the space so that I can make successful speculations. Finance is conceptually important to societal coordination, and the tech simply adds more ways of achieving it. But in the near term it has to endure wave after wave of rent seeking activity, which is also what makes it good for speculation.

More recently, to pass the time(because I play a long game here, and do not try to trade more than a few times a year) I started paying attention to the NFT markets and have been using that as an excuse to practice illustration skills, which has been fun and builds on what I already knew from games. A few works have sold. As a side gig it's fine, it lets me work on ideas I want to express, and if I continue to invest in those skills I'll have another set of options for income.

My wants are mostly centered around relationships, community and society - things that can't be answered just with work or money.

> My wants are mostly centered around relationships, community and society

Those are extremely important wants! Most folks have very low-bar perspectives about those things. Or, they see it with a simplistic lens that doesn't actually go deep.

You should definitely channel some more energy, time and attention to those things. It'll change everything, it certainly did for me :)

I'm a graphic design manager for a toy product company, so quite far from a tech company. :) Always known I'd end up in graphic design, but even despite loving computers and messing around with the guts of them (linux fan, etc), I've loathed working with design that's just meant for social media and digital assets, so my speed is more storyboarding, illustrating, architecture/tradeshow/experiential work.

I love the latter especially for its sense of physical "place" - you can't beat something that you can touch and feel. It's been a very fruitful path for me, and the fact it subsidizes my NSFW illustrations doesn't hurt. ;)

I write code and attend meetings

I’m a marine engineer who is currently specializing as an electronics technician on a ship. So I guess I get to have a Steady Eddie job all over the map.

I was always interested in computers but when it was time to strike out on a path after high school I thought the idea of being behind a computer screen all the time wasn’t that appealing so I focused on my other interest, ships.

I got to learn about engines, pumps, hydraulics, electricity, etc. (On a ship the engineers fix EVERYTHING) but after a few, ended up on a ship that allows me to focus on the electronics/ computer side and spend most my day looking at a computer.

I program as a hobby (easy to take traveling) still and read and take as many online classes as I can. I helped a coworker develop a system for his side-gig to control some LEDs with some raspberry-pi’s and a web app using Flask.

I still really don’t know what I want to be I guess, but I enjoy the level discourse here and the community’s ability to find interesting stories.

I am an ex-academic. I quit my teaching job at university for many, many reasons. By a lucky strike I found myself teaching philosophy solo online. All thanks to twitter. I have been doing this since June 2020. It's been my primary source of income so far.

It is my 'dream job' insofar as I love teaching philosophy. It isn't, however, an ideal situation. This is because at any point in time registrations for my synchronous courses might dry up.

So I have been trying to diversify my income streams too. But it's quite difficult to do so when I was a rusty academic for 7 years. The past two years were a learning experience on all fronts.

I was not sure I could actually contribute to hacker news, newbie here. So still learning the ropes, and it seems that it is not limited to tech jobs, posts, or news.

Where do I head from here? I wish I knew. The ride has been interesting though. The only reason I'm responding is because of your nickname. So, curious to hear back! Thanks!

Bathroom privacy device startup: https://Loodio.com

I used to...

Write software to model and evaluate hardware performance and power. Write software that generates software to test hardware, think hard about how to test hardware and explore if implementations violate architecture spec.

Now at work I mostly write docs about how to model/test hardware. I am too senior to write software and have to do something strategic (that is what I am told and rewarded for).

A series (very short - i did not switch companies too many times) of hey this is interesting and a few years became - "I know how to do this. It is not fun any more but I have bills to pay."

Outside of work I try to dabble in modifying/writing system code (*BSD or Linux) and teaching computer systems. Unfortunately I have very little time to put into these hobbies. I am not done chasing the dream, just a little winded from work so cant run as fast as needed to catch the dream.

Consulting: http://www.seliger.com.

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.

Hi there, this absolutely exists in Germany.

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 work as a Parent and Homemaker. My mom taught me all sorts of useful skills as I was growing up, and I enjoyed Home Economics in Middle School, so I'm not surprised that raising a child and taking care of a home (inside and out, including felling timber, digging plumbing, and repairing the frame of the house) is my favorite employment so far. Previously my most engaging work was as a High School Teacher (math and science) at a small school (fewer than 100 students), helping students practice lifelong learning. Thankfully my spouse earns enough money to support us. I gladly moved with her when she landed this job.

What do I want to do? My child has some disabilities, so I'll likely be in the Parent role full-time for awhile. It continues to be a second childhood, and I'm parenting myself along the way with the help of a professional counselor, The Blindboy Podcast, and authors through their books. After shedding several hobbies these past few years I'm slowly spinning up practice in software development, specifically to help people learn (the software I'm familiar with in public schools had a lot of problems). I'm also interested in making games, again to help people learn (while also escaping into game-land). Ideas are cheap, so if you'd like to make a game to help us better understand the hyperobject of Earth's ecosystem (see also: ecology and complexity science), please do! Number Munchers was fine and all, but we can do better. That said, I'm also ready to go without using this technology and focus on rewilding whatever land I'm on, along with changing my diet to eat mostly whatever is grown here and by nearby farmers. Computers are fun and useful tools, but we're still animals in meatspace.

I haven't included any contact information in my profile yet because I'm not ready to collaborate or be otherwise employed. That will likely change. The HN community has many people who know far more than I do, and some seem to share the general values of helping the land, water, air, and life on Earth be healthier and more resilient as the average of annual weather changes.

Edit: formatting

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.

Can you tell us what mil tech you work on without killing us? :)

A psychotherapist for 25 years. Now retired and bored. currently helping a few of my old students with their masters dissertations. I have indeed given up chasing anything period! Aching back, dodgy knee. If I was younger and could follow another dream I would definitely choose to work as a developer. I still dream but my mental agility does not provide much confidence. I have always been a linux user. In my youth hacking all the local wifi for free internet when passwords were 6 digits or your postcode. Currently an arch user with blackarch tools to keep me occupied.

Licensed mental health counselor in WA here. Been working in community mental health for the past 6 years. Pretty tired of it at this point. Thinking about going private practice, but I’ve no experience running a business. Any career advice for someone in their late 30s with a BA in psychology and an MA in counseling psychology?

Also, what drives your interest in being a developer?

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.

I am a data scientist, combining applied math with programming and devops. I have been at the current company for 8 years now, which is basically all of my career so far (spent one year abroad). I did a part time gig with them already during my studies, which was pure luck.

Regarding my deams, I don't know whether I should be 95% happy with all that I've got already or try to chase something else. A significant portion of my colleagues have stayed for more than a decade, some had changed jobs but came back after a few weeks or years.

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.

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.

I self-publish programming ebooks. Used to work as a design and test engineer at a semiconductor company. Tried a few things after leaving job before a combination of conducting workshops and selling ebooks brought me enough to pay my bills. The last two years have been better than expected. Trying to branch out this year though, writing too many books gets boring.

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.

I do way too much for one person at a fairly well known enterprise:

- Architecture

- Compliance

- Operations

- SRE

More or less herd a bunch of cats. One day it might be reworking the design of a given service, another it might be helping our more proper Operations team close a ton of vulnerabilities.

In general... I try to make things better/help others do that too

I am an independent software engineer and Solar & Energy Efficiency Engineer in Nigeria.

that's fucking cool

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.

I can't neither confirm nor deny doing what people think I do.

Gave up on my dreams of my own start up, making the world a better place, doing something creative for work.

Now I am just a team lead and just trying to climb the ladder.

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.

I'm visual artist. Mostly documentary photography and video production.

I would like to be more specialised in BW photography, just like my father was.

Nominally, sysadmin for various startups, got trapped 18 years ago. Now a voice of reason and experience but still a sysadmin mostly.

Because of the pandemic, I am now working remotely as a Content Writer. And to be honest, I am starting to like it

VB code monkey using VS2017. At least it pays the bills, no stressing. Been on this gig nearly 10 years.

I overcome tough technical challenges.

Same workplace for 25 years, but different engineering roles.

CTO, Co-Founder of an italian startup working with AR and VR.

boring devops/sre consultant who sometimes wants to be an Offical Software Engineer but really wants to be an engineering manager that still codes and travels

Nothing. I live with my parents, but I'm actually too old for that. My studying goes nowhere and that for too long as well. I get a little pocket money for helping in a vaccination center (they're slowly closing now) and with Ukrainian refugees. I dream a lot and do so little. Yes, this is self pity.

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...