this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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Just curious, what do you guys actually do for a living?

Scrolling through comments here, you can tell there's a huge mix of people, some clearly technical, some more creative, some who sound like they've been in the working world for decades, others who feel like students or early in their career.

No particular reason for asking, just genuinely curious what kind of professions make up this community. Feel free to keep it as vague or specific as you're comfortable with.

Drop your profession below, and if you want, one thing about it people usually don't expect.

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[–] Abyssian@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] MintyFresh@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

City bus driver. It's not the most exciting job I've ever had, but it's a union shop(which really kicks ass!!!), has steady hours, pension, vacation/sick days, and healthcare.

It can be infuriating dealing with people who definitely do not have their shit in a pile. But it also feels really good being there for the community. I'll probably stick with it for a bit.

[–] njordomir@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

I was in tech, both IT and business enablement roles. I got replaced by AI so now I'm a professional curmudgeon.

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 week ago

Software dev and in privat game dev/modder

[–] SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I used to whip men for a living. Now I just herd them, and some engineering-related stuff happens as a result :-)

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[–] aldhissla@piefed.world 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Software developer

I thought there'd be more of us...

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

you want more devs go to devrant

it's a nice little community similar to lemmy.

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[–] CatpainTypo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

I’ve been a dispensing optician, IT support and consultant, project manager, international NGO director, now I work as regional lead for a men’s charity and have qualified as a psychotherapist. So that’s happening now.

I used to work for a city school during the summer to get school books ready for the year/ recycle old ones, retail, bike mechanic, 3rd party labor builder for various companies, mostly bikes and furniture, and most recently at a factory cutting aluminum.

Nowadays I mostly look for jobs.

[–] n3on_Navigat0r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Railway signal maintainer.

I take care of crossing warning devices, switch machines, signals, track circuits, and wayside hazard detectors.

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[–] 87Six@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 week ago

I'm a software engineer and it feels gross to say for some reason

I'm just a poser though, because I have no thigh-highs

[–] NakedNateRollerSkate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Lawyer and engineer. I manage the IP and help spin out start ups for a large robotics research institution.

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[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Freelance artist. Make 2D and 3D digital art.

Commissions are mostly furry. Because of course. But I'm working on a sci-fi universe, and I practice a lot of 3D modelling with Bionicles.

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[–] Edge004@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 week ago

Electrical engineer. I primarily do work on water treatment plants, but because my company has few electrical engineers, I work on a variety of jobs

[–] thagoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maintenance engineer for a major window manufacturer.

Previously I worked in Healthcare in various different roles.

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[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Mechanical engineer working on the operations side of a power plant.

[–] TryingToBeGood@reddthat.com 7 points 1 week ago

Legal analyst

[–] ParadiseFound@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I'm a network engineer for a Swiss ISP that serves only a specific niche of institutional customers, not home users.

I think there are still many who don't know this: All important internet links go over fiber optic cables with lasers and photo diodes at the ends, and in the backbone everything under 100 Gigabits per second is slow.

The speeds you are used to as a consumer are mostly limited by the last mile to your house, be it wireless, DSL on telephone wires, or DOCSIS on coax cable. Everywhere else 10 Gigabits per second is like the minimum. Our current generation backbone routers can't even do 1 Gigabits per second interfaces anymore.

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[–] iceberg314@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago

Electrical engineer, I'm more on the prototype side of circuit board design

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I'm herding electrons. AKA I design chips for isosychronous low-latency networks.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

In the middle running away from tech (10+ years) to join the circus. That's not hyperbole

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[–] RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago

I'm a credit card number distributor.

[–] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 5 points 1 week ago

Systems Engineer/Programmer. Been doing it for ~26 years.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 1 week ago

I am a master of the custodial arts.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago

Full stack developer. Our stack is soggy cheese.

[–] TheViking@nord.pub 5 points 1 week ago

No profession. Didn't choose any !!

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 4 points 1 week ago

I do the 3Dies

[–] rawsta@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 week ago

I was self-employed in media for around 10years. Mostly Album covers, posters and some clothing. Mostly in reggae. Than, with 37y, I did an "apprenticeship" for 3 years and now I'm a webdev. Mostly typo3 and a bit wordpress.

[–] Stegget@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Marketing. Sorry about all the emails and texts.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

On this account, I’m a live audio technician. I run sound for events like concerts, musicals, dance shows, etc…

I also do a little bit of networking design, installation, and management on the side. Mostly because lots of devices these days are using audio-over-IP and video-over-IP systems like Dante. Nothing super fancy, but I can at least configure VLANs on a managed switch, and have gone through the SysAdmin “locked myself out of the firewall” rite of passage.

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[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Opened a consulting business a couple years ago, a solo thing. Before that 15 years in energy tech product.

[–] cenariodantesco@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Product designer in observability field

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Software Engineer

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