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Ask HN: Who has an interesting job?

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Re: Ask HN: Who has an interesting job?

#31

Post by gaws »

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: post #25
soasdfg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you find a job doing this? This sounds interesting.

I found that by accident. I got laid off by a random software company during the usual massive layoffs of December / January, and a healthcare company was looking for C++ programmers. That’s all actually. There’s a few months ramp up where you have to learn and adapt to the process, but it’s a regular coding job. Nothing special actually.

> I found that by accident.

How, exactly?

Re: Ask HN: Who has an interesting job?

#32

Post by comet »

Patent attorney here. I think fulfillment comes from people whom you work with first than the work itself. Rarely does one find good work with good people. I've been lucky that way. My work allows me to use my technical skills, my writing skills, and my 'laywering' skills during prosecutions. Every day is a new day discussing ideas, inventions, or just writing about it - what we call 'patent applications'. To add to that, I work with the best team one could possibly ask for where we demand the best from each other always and we're always learning from each other. Our offsite outings are a blast as well each year!

Re: Ask HN: Who has an interesting job?

#34

Post by runjake »

Well, it's interesting to me.

Job title: network engineer

What I really do: code, solve a wide variety of problems MacGyver-style[1], debug other people's code, work on a vast array of systems from embedded to HVAC to electrical to cloud, crawl around in tunnels, attics, roofs, and spaces.

It's pretty demanding and intellectually-stimulating. It demands I be a generalist with a decent level of expertise about a wide variety of topics. It took decades to get here. Now I get joy out of mentoring younger colleagues.

I don't think I could work on any one thing for even a year.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGyver

Re: Ask HN: Who has an interesting job?

#35

Post by devgoth »

koliber wrote: post #10

I went from engineer to manager to director to VP of Eng to advisor. I am now bootstrapping a startup alongside the advisory work. I love building and coding has always drawn me in. I also love working with people so managing engineers and later whole teams turned out to be fulfilling. Now as an advisor I get to pick projects that have particular aspects of management that I liked and companies need. Along the way I…

How do you get into advisory work? Do you need to obtain a certain title before companies want you as an advisor?

Re: Ask HN: Who has an interesting job?

#37

Post by fregonics »

runjake wrote: post #34

Well, it's interesting to me. Job title: network engineer What I really do: code, solve a wide variety of problems MacGyver-style[1], debug other people's code, work on a vast array of systems from embedded to HVAC to electrical to cloud, crawl around in tunnels, attics, roofs, and spaces. It's pretty demanding and intellectually-stimulating. It demands I be a generalist with a decent level of expertise about a wide…

You must hear this a lot, but.. do you have any tips on how to break into the field?

Currently I'm a backend engineer, but my initial interest to dive into development was operating systems and networking.

I recently have been improving my knowledge doing some systems related projects and trying to contribute a bit to open source, but getting a role working with that still seems so unreachable not having any formal experience...

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