Topic: What do you do for work?

Just post what you do -- try to be more descriptive than a job title; "systems analyst" sounds fancy and all, but doesn't really tell people WHAT you do as a systems analyst.  Sure, some job titles are relatively self-explanatory, but feel free to expound upon them!  If you don't feel comfortable saying where you work, you don't have to; you can say what sort of company it is if you'd like, but that's not necessary either.  I'll start.

I work as a web systems administrator for a large toy company.  My job is basically to keep the public-facing web site online, deploy new code to the servers, fiddle with the server configurations (mostly redirects) as our various business units see fit, and so on.

Re: What do you do for work?

I work for a software services company.  Right now I'm on a project to write linux device drivers for a major silicon provider to sell their chip to a major satellite provider for future Set Top Boxes (STBs).

Before I moved to this project a couple months ago, I was on a project doing linux device driver maintenance work for deployed STBs for a major satellite provider.  We mainly tracked down bugs, fixed them, and also merged lots of patches/bug fixes/new features from multiple vendors into shared driver trees and managed many cherry-picked releases based on the customer requirements.  I worked on that project for about 6 years.

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Re: What do you do for work?

I'm not working any more, but used to be in low management for a Food & Facilities Management contract company. I started early as a computer hobbyist in the early 80s with a bizarre "Timex Sinclair 1000" computer. Since anything having to deal with computers was something like "magic" to most people then, for a lot of my working days I got to be "the computer guy." It was great, because nobody had any idea how much time I should be taking to do this stuff, so they just left me alone. That kept working on and off through the years, even though most of the time I was "winging it."

Re: What do you do for work?

bobsz wrote:

I'm not working any more, but used to be in low management for a Food & Facilities Management contract company. I started early as a computer hobbyist in the early 80s with a bizarre "Timex Sinclair 1000" computer. Since anything having to deal with computers was something like "magic" to most people then, for a lot of my working days I got to be "the computer guy." It was great, because nobody had any idea how much time I should be taking to do this stuff, so they just left me alone. That kept working on and off through the years, even though most of the time I was "winging it."

I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 also.  I had the 16k memory expansion kit and the printer also.  smile  I recently donated the whole setup to a computer museum in Austin, TX.  I do remember it being a pain in the ass to get the Sinclair to read or save any programs to my cassette player though.  smile

BTW, right now I am a Police Officer in Texas.  It is my second career.  I was in the computer biz from about 1990-2002, did quite a bit of stuff.  Started in PC/Windows support and moved in IIS administration.  When the 9/11 hit and the dot.com bubble burst, had a hard time find a job, so I made a career change, but I am still a geek at heart.

5 (edited by jphphotography 2012-06-03 18:48:33)

Re: What do you do for work?

I'm an electronics tech (main job) and photographer. I work at a place that manufactures communications equipment, stuff for cable headends (upconverters, QAM modulators, transmodulators, return path demodulators etc) and also broadband wireless solutions. Can't go into too much detail though (publicly traded company, intellectual property yada yada). I've worked in the production dept, manufacturing quality dept, was a technical trainer, and finally the warranty dept.

The photography is a hobby that funds itself, feel free to check out my work at www.jphphotography.ca

As George Eastman of Eastman Kodak once said:
"What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are."

So by that definition I'm a photographer, graphic designer, inventor, musician, and beginner Chumby hacker smile

Re: What do you do for work?

I'm an embedded Linux software developer working for a company which makes IP security cameras.  My job is to help create our own custom Linux "distribution"  that runs on the security cameras.  This means that I take third party components like NTP and itegrate them, as well as writing some custom camera applications.

7 (edited by Materdaddy 2012-06-04 09:16:23)

Re: What do you do for work?

pearmaster wrote:

I'm an embedded Linux software developer working for a company which makes IP security cameras.  My job is to help create our own custom Linux "distribution"  that runs on the security cameras.  This means that I take third party components like NTP and itegrate them, as well as writing some custom camera applications.

I have a relatively new co-worker that had a very similar past job... are you in Northern California by chance?

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Re: What do you do for work?

Materdaddy wrote:

I have a relatively new co-worker that had a very similar past job... are you in Northern California by chance?

No.  I'm in Colorado, but I have a lot of colleagues that work near Fresno.

9 (edited by amigafin 2012-06-06 16:06:18)

Re: What do you do for work?

I am the "chief engineer" for a county school systems telecommunications department in Florida. I repair/install/modify all the phones, computer wiring, wireless, video, and audio with 14 other guys, but I'm the go to guy when things go haywire or get weird. On the side I build electronic gadgets and test equipment. As a hobby I am restoring a 1969 plymouth satellite convertible, and building a robot. I have a bunch of old computer hardware, mainly commodore and tandy based.

Re: What do you do for work?

I am currently working as a Registered Nurse (RN) working in the Operating Room. (no Focker jokes please ;-p )
Before that I was an electronics engineer that worked in automation controls and robotics. Worked on automated welders that repaired nuclear power plants, fossil fuel plants and anything else that can be welded. I then moved into automated fill level inspection and laser coding with CO2 lasers up to 50 watts. After 20 years of traveling the states and over seas, I wanted to sleep in my own bed more than once a month and play with my toys that I bought but never had the chance to enjoy. So I did what any electronics nerd would do and got a nursing license! Oh yea, while going to nursing school I worked as a network manager for awhile doing everything from helpdesk to install and fix computers, network gear ect.
I want to combine my electronics and medical experience eventually. There are so many fun things used in the medical industry now such as remote telemetry to let doctors and nurses in another location help diagnose medical problems or my favorite, the da Vinci Surgical Robot.

You can take the guy out of electronics but can never get the electronics out of the guy! (please do not ask what items have been removed from patients!)