Ask HN: Non technical HN users, what do you do for a living?

No background in real estate other than as a client! I've been doing software consulting locally for a number of years. Prior to that I was doing database related development. (Warehouse design, ETL, and analytics.)

In case anyone might be considering career options some semi-random background and bits of my thought process:

I haven't been getting any traction on the tech side locally as much as I enjoy the engineering and problem solving. So I started looking inside myself for assets/skills and limitations as well as around my community for where to find the opportunities.

My basic questions became: What can I do without being concerned about my age (in my 50s as of last year) and have high levels of autonomy regarding scheduling my time? Where is the money flowing locally? How do I put myself in the position of being a revenue center instead of a cost center?

What do I bring to the table? Computational thinking, problem solving, and picking up processes and systems fast. (Seems to help quite a bit with following the paper trail in a contract.) My demonstrated non-tech assets/skills (Argentine Tango instructor, math and software tutor, flight instructor) include connecting with people and being very calm in stressful situations.

As far as age goes, a number of people are real estate brokers well into old age. It's a great retirement career from what I am seeing.

Locally, real estate has been strong relatively speaking for a number of years. Seattle and Vancouver BC home prices are making my town very attractive as an alternative. Especially for those who can telecommute.

So I knew I could quickly learn the systems and processes of being a broker. I have the personal attributes/skills to connect and work with clients. As long as I am willing to learn from role models doing business successfully how I want to do business, in time I will be successful.

Plus, working under established brand/company has been very nice.

Considering all of the above learning how to be a successful real estate broker made sense for me. Now I can explore areas like infosec and cryptanalysis for fun. No pressure to monetize.