You could become a gigolo who fixes ladies' computers.
"Oh, ya see there? The molex connectors aren't plugged in to the RAM. Let me get my electrostatic bracelet, and I'll have that screwed back down in a jiffy."
Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
71–80 of 94 posts
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#72Field robotics. Technically very challenging (involves computer science, math, physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, control systems engineering, etc.) and very fun. Provides many different areas to specialize in, e.g. perception, planning, learning, control, etc. And you get to spend time physically working with machines just as often (if not more) than sitting at your laptop writing code. For exa…
do you know if there are any successful bootstrapped startups in field robotics? for instance, 1 or 2 guys in a garage who succeed into designing and selling their own UAV? or maybe design a new wheeled robot toy?
I don't know about a garage, but university spin-offs are pretty common. Couple from my university off the top of my head: http://www.aeryon.com/ http://www.clearpathrobotics.com/
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#73My father loves working on elevators. It's a very active job, but it requires lots of troubleshooting and innovation. You have to be able to troubleshoot OLD relay based switching equipment, tape reader programmed controllers from the 80's and fancy new digital controllers.
He has to be able to engineer support and rigging systems to move old/new equipment out of tight spaces, knocking out walls, contracting out metal workers to add in support beams (elevator generators and motors are very heavy and big). I got him setup with autocad to draft some counter weight plates he had cut via a fire cutter (laser cutter but with cutting torch).
Lots of fun projects, lots of problems, lots of solutions. It pays $55 an hour i think, top scale, and you get something like $15 an hour in benefits. It takes around a year to get called off the bench (it's a union job, but not a shitty union like teamsters. People can and will get fired for not doing their jobs).
Finally, for the workaholic, overtime is always available and it's double time. $110 an hour an extra 2 hours a week can really add up.
Basically, if I wasn't programming I'd be making elevators go up and down.
Another option I have considered is an arborist. Kinda funny, but I love rock climbing, and being an arborist is basically "the same thing", in that you get to harness up, jug up some fixed lines, rig up lowers (can't always drop branches), etc. Looks like alot of fun at least for a while!
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for sharing, had to look the term up. roughneck (drilling): "A low-ranking member of the drilling crew. The roughneck usually performs semiskilled and unskilled manual labor that requires continual hard work in difficult conditions for many hours. After roughnecks understand how the rig operates and demonstrates their work ethic, they may be promoted to other positions in the crew." "This might actually refer…
I have not been a roughneck, but I grew up in Edmonton, Canada at a time when several of my Gr. 12 classmates went for 3 months in the summer and earned more than their teachers did in a year. The pay is high (my friends earned about 12k/month) but it is dirty, dangerous work. You are isolated for weeks or months at a time. Drug use is extremely common, and your safety and even life often depends on the clear thinkin…
Any money you don't lose gambling will just go toward the downpayment on a $100k pickup truck anyway, if the parking lots of Grande Prairie on a weekend are any indication. =)
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#75Camera operator. The film/video field is rife with opportunities for smart digiterati, the work is challenging, fulfilling, and well paid. Not a photographer? Become a 'dgitial imaging technician' - arrive in middle of nowhere, set up a bulletproof fileserver, push terabytes of video data around on demand while creating secure backups and often working with alpha builds, work 18 hour days. Downsides: you need to be n…
I have so many friends in the industry and it blows my mind that movies ever get made. The inner workings of the movie business with its 'extreme personalities', on-set politics and its ridiculous accounting processes would likely drive any computer programmer to madness.
That said, the camera operators at the top of their game get paid really well. Its a total racket too, if you're good and in whatever guild controls the camera operators you can command ridiculous amounts of money.
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#76My cousin is an intensive care doctor and he is on his feet all day long running from one place to another, but I guess it will take a long time to become one...
true, but you could also go the Physician's Assistant or Nurse Practitioner (or just Nurse) route... shorter training (only by comparison to MDs), and they all spend a lot of time on their feet.
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#77Surveyor.
Licensed surveyors make good money, particularly if they run their own small firm. This is due to the difficulty in getting licensed (education + exams + apprenticeship) and importance of the data they gather (property surveys become legally binding documents and site surveys provide essential information to civil engineers). And with GPS, etc, there's plenty of technology involved.
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are your areas of physical expertise or experience?
You mean there is no physical activity that directly builds on top of a software engineering education? Yeah, I guess it was a stretch. But I actually think that there might be a middle ground that involves sports and engineering. Perhaps a product or service and a reason to jump on the startup train.
There are, see my above reply about elevator mechanics. You are on your feet all day, you carry equipment around, you use hand tools, however you extensively troubleshoot and get creative with solutions to electrical and mechanical problems. So, combines the physical activity of a construction type of job (very rewarding filling), with the ingenuity/troubleshooting of programming.
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#79Field robotics. Technically very challenging (involves computer science, math, physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, control systems engineering, etc.) and very fun. Provides many different areas to specialize in, e.g. perception, planning, learning, control, etc. And you get to spend time physically working with machines just as often (if not more) than sitting at your laptop writing code. For exa…
do you know if there are any successful bootstrapped startups in field robotics? for instance, 1 or 2 guys in a garage who succeed into designing and selling their own UAV? or maybe design a new wheeled robot toy?
Sure. There are quite a few. Here is a non-comprehensive list:
http://www.bnrobotics.com/ http://www.resquared.com/ http://www.aethon.com/ http://www.redzone.com/ http://www.seegrid.com/ http://www.bostondynamics.com/ http://www.irobot.com/ http://www.cyphyworks.com/ http://www.mobilerobots.com/ http://www.willowgarage.com/ http://www.evolution.com/ http://www.sensiblemachines.com/ http://astrobotictechnology.com/ ... etc ...
NOTE: Some of the companies are further along than others but all of them (to the best of my knowledge) started as startups and/or university spin-outs (which is a subset of startups). You can normally find startup robotics companies near/around the schools with the best robotics programs (i.e. CMU, UPenn, Stanford, MIT, etc.)
Re: Well paid jobs that require you to be physically active?
#80Cabinetry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinetry It doesn't have to be overly taxing physical work (requiring a lot of strength), but it is usually a very active physical work (requiring constant movement). Getting well paid while doing it might be tough. It is not a well paid job by default. However, with some imagination you might be able to use your scientific/math/engineering background to make products that hav…
There's a KraftMaid factory near where I grew up, and it is the job that people work when they can't find work doing anything else. The work conditions are pretty crappy (for modern America, at least). It's very repetitive, mind-numbing, no-way-it-can-be-good-for-you-longterm work. And the pay only starts out at like $13/hr. This is in northeast Ohio.