Recovering from startups, I turned towards football (soccer) analytics for something fun to do with programming/machine learning skills. I eventually got hired to spend a Summer helping out with recruitment at a football club in Europe, and the first player we signed (from a basically unknown team) became a fan favourite, and then got his first national call-up, and he went on to win a major international trophy. Can't really take credit for his achievements, but that final was the most satisfying moment of my career to date.
Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
21–30 of 265 posts
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#22Ebay because I ran the business by myself I have over 200 confirmed trades and 20,000 dollars recovered in 60 days I made 5000 once.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#23https://pythonjobs.github.io/
It was surprisingly simple to set up, cost basically nothing (github handle hosting & process, and like the concept).
Possibly helps people out :). Although it was built to fill the gap of the python.org job board that is now working, so we're not promoting it actively
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#24So far mine has been to bootstrap my own company. It has been my goal for a while now and I tried different projects while doing freelancing work on the side. The project that finally stuck is a digital signage service ( https://info-beamer.com ) now. For a long time I didn't even know I was doing digital signage: I just wrote the software to show info on a projector for a local hacker conference since I didn't find…
Wow, info-beamer looks amazing, congratulations+thanks!
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#25I created/deployed a system to track a fleet of aircraft in real-time, that then messaged individuals when anomalous conditions (plane crash) was detected. It was inexpensive to run and reliable.
In terms of what's most gratifying though, honestly, giving workshops or volunteering in a way that empowers others. I give workshops to trans and gender diverse individuals. I've volunteered with Technovation to get young women into tech. I've done one-on-one mentorship. That's the stuff that makes me feel better and none of that is paid work.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#26Not quite startup or hobby project material, but some of the most gratifying work is making non-critical, easy to implement changes in your business's workflow! Sometimes users will have minor (or major) issues with the way a tool works - database takes 30 seconds to retrieve a certain type of information, there's no clear path from point A to point B in a frequently used business tool, certain jobs take 2x as long a…
I tend to agree -- I am sure people are hoping for an answer about joining a mission-driven small company and changing the world. But Enterprise IT in a large company gives you that daily hit of small successes, helping one or two people to have a better day and improved tools.
It comes with downsides, too, which I'm sure this community can rant about ad nauseum. But truly, if your primary goal above all other things is to have the experience of making someone's day better as an every day occurrence, one should be doing application support in large corp.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#27Switching to the nonprofit sector where, surprisingly, there's a lot of interesting use of technology. Knowing that my efforts have resulted in poor kids going to school, refugees getting hot meals, and hundreds of other similar outcomes has keep me blissfully happy with my job for 11 years now (longer than I'd ever thought I'd say at one place).
If you are interested in making a similar switch, here are some resources:
* https://www.idealist.org/ * Look at career pages for any nonprofit listed here: https://www.ctosforgood.org/
(Disclaimer: I work at GlobalGiving.org, but we're not hiring. I'm just keen to get more talented people in the nonprofit sector! AMA!)
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#28Not quite startup or hobby project material, but some of the most gratifying work is making non-critical, easy to implement changes in your business's workflow! Sometimes users will have minor (or major) issues with the way a tool works - database takes 30 seconds to retrieve a certain type of information, there's no clear path from point A to point B in a frequently used business tool, certain jobs take 2x as long a…
I can second this. I think it is an answer, to counter the other commenter. There are businesses that are built on the idea of coming in and streamlining processes and inefficiencies. This could fall into that category.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#29Recovering from startups, I turned towards football (soccer) analytics for something fun to do with programming/machine learning skills. I eventually got hired to spend a Summer helping out with recruitment at a football club in Europe, and the first player we signed (from a basically unknown team) became a fan favourite, and then got his first national call-up, and he went on to win a major international trophy. Can…
Who was it?
Also, where did you get the data? Was it free?
Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?
#30But yeah. One of the most satisfying jobs I had was one that allowed me to re-write a product suite from scratch. The old one was just... unbearable. A friend of mine and I sat down and rewrote a suite of credit union products (teller, loan, home-banking, audio-banking, etc). Took us a few months to get the first product out the door, and a couple of years to get the entire suite done.
When our customers (and prospective customers) saw the new products, they said things like, "Oh, thank God!" It was pretty rewarding, to say the least.