9 ms·

Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

• mgmtconsultant 12y ago
  I'm a management consultant. When hackers (Michael O'Church, for instance) write about "MBA Culture" as opposed to "Hacker Culture" - well, I'm in the center of the MBAs. Why do I read HN? Mostly, because I like and enjoy working in the technology space (defined broadly) and hope to build a career in tech. HN is great at giving me a view over the other side of the fence.
  • MadMoogle 12y ago
    Do you agree with what Michael O'Church says about MBA culture? I've read a whole lot of his side of the argument but very little from somebody 'in the center of the MBAs'.
• Saus 12y ago
  I'm in sales (network monitoring, deep packet inspection and security). I've tried code bootcamps six or seven times, but coding isn't for me, talking is my thing. As you said, the frontpage is the day after tomorrows news in my industry. Just because I read HN, it seems I'm very well informed. Besides that I'm a failed entrepeneur (closed shop after 2 years, now mostly wantrepeneur/idea-guy ;)) and I enjoy reading succes stories of others.
• rthomas6 12y ago
  I'm an electrical/computer engineer. Coding/CS is only an auxiliary interest for me.
  • sliverstorm 12y ago
    Same deal. HN exposes me to some CS stuff. Also important, the EE/CE community is small, and I share many general interests with the CS community, so I jump on the CS news bandwagon.
• NAFV_P 12y ago
  HN readers like yourself are a big plus, it lends the site diversity. There is also a fairly big age range. I would definitely agree with point A. The odd gem, like [0]. Advice or pointers from other HN readers. I do not work in the software industry, but I would call myself a hacker. The term "hacker" can be interpreted in imaginative ways, I wouldn't be surprised to find hackers in your area of work. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7388576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7388576
• FD3SA 12y ago
  HN is a fascinating place mainly because it is one of the most diverse communities of incredibly intelligent people on the web. The level of discourse is usually high while covering a very broad range of subjects. Subject specific communities still exceed HN competency in their respective domains, but nowhere that I've found covers such a diverse range of topics with a relatively high competence. Unfortunately there are still some very obvious biases regarding certain subjects, but at least the community entertains other points of view. Although I'm an engineer by training, HN has led me to explore many domains to which I wouldn't otherwise have been exposed. Furthermore, there are some incredible individuals here who I'd never run into otherwise, and discussions with them are extremely satisfying. Overall a great community, though sometimes limited by the bias of its origins.
• thehoneybadger 12y ago
  Evil corporate lawyer.... love code, algorithms, new tech, and insightful commentary. HATE advertising.
• jakarta 12y ago
  I'm an analyst at a hedge fund, I have a job as a generalist so I look at pretty much every asset class/geography/industry. Historically have done very little investing in tech, but I'm interested in it and HN is a good way to keep up with the industry. I look at startups as businesses or industries where the rate of change is much faster than normal. I think as an investor you're really a student of business and that makes startups a really fascinating area to observe.
• Bootvis 12y ago
  I'm a consulting actuary. What am I doing here? I've been programming since I was 11 and still do it often. You have to as an actuary. Besides I have some web skills and I'm using to build a startup doing risk management for farmers. In this startup I'm responsible for the whole stack.
  • Kluny 12y ago
    What does an actuary do? And what programming do you do?
    • pessimizer 12y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuary
    • Bootvis 12y ago
      What an actuary does depends, other replies indicate that actuaries don't do as much programming as I thought they did. However, I do a lot. At the moment I'm mainly responsible for building a large cash flow model (40k lines of VBA).
  • lself 12y ago
    Also an actuary. Consulted at one time but work at a company now. I started programming around the same age and also use it for work. We all do SQL but I am the only one doing general purpose coding at my company. Also have web skills (the coincidences just keep coming). I do a few things on the side and am contemplating a bootstrapped startup soonish. For example, I did everything but the logo on this site: http://tvsift.com/ http://tvsift.com/
    • bornhuetter 12y ago
      I'm an actuary as well! I would dispute GP that "as an actuary you have to program". The overwhelming majority of actuaries I know barely know how to use VBA. I quit chasing a career in Comp Sci at uni (I started programming at a very young age, and always wanted to be a software engineer) to switch to actuarial science, but now, even though I'm a Fellow, I've quit my job to go into entrepreneurship. I think that being an actuary places us very well to go into startups that take advantage of our analytic and risk management skill set. With the amount of data being collected, that means about 90% of startups.
• justizin 12y ago
  software isn't an industry, it's a way of life.
• giarc 12y ago
  I work in infection control in a large urban hospital (microbiology and epidemiology background/education). Computer skills required for my job are basically Word and Excel. I enjoy the tech startup world and have plans to start my own in the very near future. Currently using various sites to learn to program myself (Codeacademy, Bento, Dash). I think it is important to know what your site is doing and be able to respond to issues. I have learned so much from this community/site that I hope it will put me on a better path to success. However, the one thing about HN (and this is true of just about any community) that there are people here who are so smart, that I get convinced that I'm not ready to start building my site. I see examples of javascript here for example, and I think "My skills are no where close to that, how can I possible start working on my sites JS."
  • anmonteiro90 12y ago
    There is always going to be someone better than you. I'd say just start working on your site's JS, you have no idea how much you'll learn in the process :)
    • giarc 12y ago
      Thanks. I did the same a few years ago when I took a job that required Filemaker development and I had never used the software before (downloaded the free trial before the job). Once you start using something, and you have the knowledge to know where to look for help/answers, you can do quite a bit.
      • sakai 12y ago
        Hey – working on a startup in the space and am very interested in talking with somebody working in infection control. If it's of interest, please send me an email (in my profile). And would love to hear your plans too!
  • marcosdumay 12y ago
    I'll second anmonteiro90. Just a few points. Put your work in a version control system (optimally Mercurial or Git), study the request-response cycle for a few hours (no need to get very deep, but understand what programs are involved in your site, and how to configure them), and yeah, do it.
• bkohlmann 12y ago
  I'm a fighter pilot. Best place to get news about the trends shaping our world, and muse over natl security implications.
  • tomrod 12y ago
    That's awesome.
    • bkohlmann 12y ago
      And terrifying...night carrier landings behind the carrier are pure insanity. After Every single one at least one of my legs was shaking uncontrollably!
      • idlewords 12y ago
        As far as I am concerned, there can never be too many online memoirs about carrier night landings. Please write up your stories for us chairbound types!
        • bkohlmann 12y ago
          Here ya go: http://conservativeorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2010/05/general-and-jtac.html?m=1 http://conservativeorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2010/05/general-an...
          • bootload 12y ago
            "... They are all of the same general shape and internal composition, and when looking down upon them, I couldn’t help but think of flying over suburbs of the US ..." Listening to CDR Chris Hatfield on the radio yesterday, made this exact observation from space. It's a human pattern that you can see from Australia to the US to Afghanistan ~ http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/an-astronaut27s-guide-to-life3a-chris-hadfield/5653184 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/a... "... When I emerged from the near empty Officer’s Mess after our Thanksgiving meal, I wandered up to the hanger bay and was shocked by what I saw. Enlisted sailors, many of whom had spent hours painting the walls, and cleaning the floors to present an image of perfection to our superior, were standing in an endless line hundreds deep waiting to get their meal. A meal that was due to close minutes later. I had never seen a line so long on the ship before. Somewhere the logistics chain failed, and priorities were askew. I did what I could for a few of them, but many still missed out on their meal. As a leader of these men and women, I felt ashamed. As far as I know, General Petraeus didn’t get wind of this – had he, I wonder how it would have turned out. ...." I'm surprised by this. Non provisioning of the enlisted on a major US celebration. Could be mistaken as a sign of shite leadership. Your descriptions of Petraeus on the other hand speaks the opposite.
• my_username_is_ 12y ago
  I'm a mechanical engineer, working in product development. I have an interest in programming to the extent that I can try to automate some tedious tasks, but very little formal training. I'm definitely a long ways from being a "hacker" as its known here. I agree with all of your reasons for visiting HN. I've mentioned this before on another thread, but the guideline that posts should be "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"[1] tends to produce a lot of content that I find interesting, and I'm sure there are many more people like us here. One thing that I will add is that I wish that people posted more non-programming jobs in the monthly Who's Hiring. Even if you just posted the approximate job title it'd be better than omitting it entirely. Every month I control+F>"mechanincal engineer", and there are almost never more than one or two posts, despite the fact that I see some of the same companies posting these positions on different job boards. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • ahjushi 12y ago
    Woah, my doppelganger! I work in user acquisition, specifically in SEM (AdWords/Bing). Same reasons here: cursory knowledge of programming I self-taught when trying to automate tasks, but nothing formal. Trying to learn more because I want to go the Product Management route. This place definitely piques my curiosity in things I sometimes never knew existed. I've been lurking for a few years and can say that I've learned so much more about technology, business, etc. from here that I otherwise wouldn't have (I didn't even know what a PM was before; now I want to be one, heh). Also echo the desire for non-programming jobs in the Who's Hiring thread, but I guess that's a double-edged sword because if it gets too diverse, it can become like a regular job board and thereby lose its relevance, for employers and employees alike. At the same time, my selfish side wishes it to be so since I would love to work for companies that frequent HN, i.e. more forward-thinking companies doing really cool things (usually).
    • NearAP 12y ago
      You don't necessarily have to be able to program to be a Product Manager (I know PMs who don't program). I've also done PM interviews which didn't include anything about programming (the interviews focused more on strategy, functionality and logic/reasoning)
• frozenport 12y ago
  Graduate student who does code but in a non-cs field, I use this site to stay in the know about tech, which has practical value for job interviews.
  • periwinkle 12y ago
    I'm a neuroscience PhD student, similar deal - I write a lot of code (matlab, python) and find it an enjoyable hobby and potential non-academic career path.
    • jmenn 12y ago
      Same, but English literature PhD student keeping an eye on being employable in the future if tenure disappears. Generally find myself writing Python as a hobby or for my dissertation.
• 2mur 12y ago
  I'm a pathologist. I code for a hobby. Building a software product slowly in my spare time.
• phusion 12y ago
  I've been in IT since 1999 or so, when the high school I was attending recognized my skills and hired me on as a part of a student lead admin team. Myself and 4-5 friends ran the network with a single adult sysadmin. Since then I have branched out to linux admin in my spare time, but have only worked in MS shops. I'm currently working for a propane company as their windows admin and helpdesk monk.. guy. I don't know a line of code, know a bit of security, but am always interested in how things work and what kind of WiFi is being run in my neighborhood, so I consider myself a hacker.
• egypturnash 12y ago
  I'm an artist. I'm engaged in writing and drawing a graphic novel about a robot lady with reality problems. Reading HN gives me things to mull over regarding my own hesitant steps into the world of promotion, sales, and making a business happen on the web. Also I used to dabble in programming back in the days of the C64 and Amiga. I will probably never do any major programming projects but I like to keep up with tech news, and this is a decent source for some of that.
  • daveloyall 12y ago
    I recognized you at "robot lady with reality problems" and I absolutely LOVE your work. Thank you! See you in the future!
    • AnimalMuppet 12y ago
      For those of us who don't recognize it, can you (or the GP) give us a clue? Titles? Name of series? Some hint?
      • bnejad 12y ago
        Check the parent's profile, its all in there.
      • chipotle_coyote 12y ago
        The series is "Decrypting Rita". http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/chapter/01/ http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/chapter/01/
    • egypturnash 12y ago
      haha thanks! I got cons coming up if you're west coast and want to say hi in the flesh: Rose City, Rainfurrest, Emerald City. I was hoping to do a couple more but I missed some table application deadlines.
  • wdewind 12y ago
    Your comic is really awesome but the top 20 or 30 pixels are cut off. Please fix it I want to read!! http://cl.ly/image/2J1h2b0B3C40 http://cl.ly/image/2J1h2b0B3C40
• marsrovershadow 12y ago
  not sure if there is a community (at the moment?), but there is a wealth of under-the-radar type stuff which is interesting for those outside of the biz (i.e. military). there seems to be about a 60/40 split between straight tech/programming stuff and more general/non-technical information in a pleasantly-mixed churn. i find HN to be a good motivator to look at other fields through a "hacker" lens and think in an architectural/programming/entrepreneurial/system-level manner.
• jib 12y ago
  Im a project manager in customer support. I have a science (chemistry/physics/computer science) background, but I never worked with it professionally. The only programming I do is purely casual. I enjoy reading about new tech and business - I like the mix of that and other general interest stories. Mostly I come here for the comments - I read comments before most articles, and I tend to only read the articles if there is a good discussion around them.
• fluxxx 12y ago
  I operate an small non-profit burlesque museum, but I used to work as a manager/lead tech of a IT consulting and training company. I left tech because the stress was making me ill, but I actually miss it.
  • bussiere 12y ago
    I would like to hear where your museum is. If you have any website or else
    • fluxxx 12y ago
      Las Vegas, NV http://www.burlesquehall.com/ http://www.burlesquehall.com/
• foobarbecue 12y ago
  I'm a geochemistry PhD student working on volcanoes, but I have several website projects, of which climbshare.com is the most recent. HN has alerted me to some useful new web technologies.
  • jofer 12y ago
    Hey, another geo! I'm guessing you're at New Mexico Tech? (Basing that on the San Lorenzo Unconformity outcrop shown on climbshare... At any rate, you've clearly been out there, even if you're not at NMT.) On a side note, with climbshare, are you using lidar scans, or are you reconstructing the 3D geometry from photos? Either way, it's quite impressive!
  • Intermernet 12y ago
    Climbshare is wonderful! I've resorted to the Android Photosphere function for capturing entire boulders, but a true 3d model is infinitely better. I'd love to know if you're doing this with LIDAR, or reconstruction from 2d images. How would I go about submitting climb data (mostly boulder problems) to your site? What data do you need,and in what formats?
• nichodges 12y ago
  I'm so glad someone asked this. I'm originally an industrial designer, and ended up in advertising. I spent ten years in advertising, and recently resigned to take a step back and work out what's next. I can code, but I'm definitely not a professional dev. I've been reading HN for around 5 years. I'm here because I love technology, and love seeing what people are doing with it. Outside a few email lists and Twitter, there's no other site/source that I've stuck with for so long. What do I get out of it? Aside from always learning new things (I have very little use for lambda calculus or univariate linear regression in my life, yet because of HN I know a lot about both). I spend a lot of my time now working with / mentoring / investing in Melbourne-based startups, and the comments and links I read on HN give me perspectives and thinking and experiences from a global startup community that I wouldn't always have access to. Of course those opinions and perspectives and experiences are almost always skewed, this place is a filter bubble, but if you keep the bias in mind it's a phenomenally efficient filter of quality information and thinking.
• mdturnerphys 12y ago
  I'm an experimental physics PhD student. I'm not much of a coder, but I'd probably consider myself a hardware hacker. I'm interested in finding a job in high-tech product R&D and enjoy learning about the startup community.
• georgespencer 12y ago
  Non technical startup founder. Used to write PHP for a living and now I spend all day in (interesting) meetings.
• lotharbot 12y ago
  I'm a stay-at-home dad. Last year I was a math teacher. The last time I worked a "tech" job was in grad school nearly a decade ago, assisting my department's IT manager. I'm here because I like to learn about things. Not just products/services that I found out about from here that helped me in life (airbnb, hipmunk, leaky, freelancer) but simply ideas (I've learned relevant things about religion, games, science, warfare, education, driving, the basic income, and so on.) I'm also here because my wife is a hacker and I like to be aware of what she's reading and thinking about.
• Kinnard 12y ago
  There are many definitions of hacker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hacker_Manifesto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hacker_Manifesto Wark defines hacking 'as an “abstraction”, the construction of different and unrelated matters into previously unrealized relations. Hackers produce new conceptions, perceptions and sensations hacked out of raw data. Everything and anything is a code for the hacker to hack, be it “programming, language, poetic language, math, or music, curves or colourings” [3] and once hacked, they create the possibility for new things to enter the world. What they create is not necessarily “great”, or “even good”, but new, in the areas of culture, art, science, and philosophy or “in any production of knowledge where data can be extracted from it.” Wark argues that (new) information comes from the hack. It doesn’t matter if you are a computer programmer, a philosopher, a teacher, a musician, a physicist, if you essentially produce new information - it’s a hack [1]. In this sense, hackers are creators and they bring new ideas into the world. The aim of the book is to highlight the origins, purpose and efforts by this emerging hacker class, who produce new; concepts, perceptions, and sensations out of the stuff of raw data.'
  • jiggy2011 12y ago
    I've literally never heard a musician , mathematician or engineer refer to themselves as a "hacker" or anyone outside of computing for that matter.
    • Kinnard 12y ago
      You will soon. This itself is a hack ;)
      • Kinnard 12y ago
        See: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/14/tech/innovation/music-hackers-unleash-instruments/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/14/tech/innovation/music-hackers-...
    • AnimalMuppet 12y ago
      A jazz musician might easily fit the definition of a hacker, but still might be more likely to describe him/herself as "a cat who can blow".
• Squarel 12y ago
  Masters student doing botany/pedology. Here because of reason A from OP, but also because I am always keeping an eye out for new tools I can use for data analysis in my thesis.
• Xcelerate 12y ago
  I'm a chemical engineer, working on my PhD currently. My research is in molecular dynamics (I get to use supercomputers like Titan), so I learn a lot about high-performance computing and programming from HN. Really though, I like this site for the high-quality discourse compared to other websites.
• tomrod 12y ago
  I'm an economist who builds Fed stress test models for a bank. But I hack too, it's fun.
  • hellbanner 12y ago
    What's the most interesting thing you've learned? (Looked up your papers, thanks for publishing!)
    • tomrod 12y ago
      That the word "boondock" comes from Tagalog, and likely entered the English lexicon in the early 20th century as a result of the Spanish-American war. (I'm not sure what aspect of learning you're curious about).
• HelloMcFly 12y ago
  I'm an industrial-organizational psychologist. I design selection systems, HR programs designs at affecting outcomes (like attrition) and do the data analysis relevant to those ends. An HR guy* and a social scientist! I could make an easy punching bag. *More on the strategy and data-analysis end, less on administration. I barely know what HR Generalists do.
  • graham1776 12y ago
    I am putting together a site that catalogs all the benefits a company can offer their employees, can I run it by you to see what you think?
• tanderson92 12y ago
  I'm an applied mathematician, working on my PhD at the moment. I do a good deal of programming(HPC) but I wouldn't consider myself quite at the level of a hacker.
• cm2012 12y ago
  Online Marketing Manager. Marketing and advertising stuff here can be pretty useful. Mostly I stay for the decently intelligent discussion.
• gyc 12y ago
  I'm a big bad patent attorney (please be kind). I have a computing engineering degree and like to do a little iOS coding in my free time. I like keeping up on what's happening in the tech industry.
• wgoodwin 12y ago
  I'm a lawyer, with a split practice between IP lit and tech trans, and tried some modest entrepreneurial ventures pre-law school that ended up failing, and I read HN for largely the same reasons.
• cwal37 12y ago
  I'm a researcher I guess. I'm doing my Post-Master's in renewable energy economics and market analysis at a DOE lab. I use Python pretty much every day, so there are plenty of things here that are relevant to my working life. I've just always loved tech, and have a few app and game ideas (like most people) whose many skeletons, design docs, and outlines litter my harddrives and commonplace book. Although I also do spend a fair amount of time reading and writing policy analysis. I wouldn't consider myself 100% not a hacker though. My weekend list is to get some webscraping done to support a future project, and check out Home Depot for materials to build a cold-brewing setup.
  • tomrod 12y ago
    I almost took a position doing something similar. There are some fascinating projects going on at the DOE labs.
• anoncow 12y ago
  I am a doctor working in a pharmaceutical company. I used to code before starting medical school. Still do. Here mostly for the scene, the point of views and the people. I love the posters here and the feeling of community. It motivates me to keep trying new things. (I count myself as a hacker. I code and maintain a number of (poor quality) projects.)
• Bzomak 12y ago
  I'm here because I find the various news and discussions about assorted programming languages fascinating. I often find, either posted directly to the site or in the comments, new resources which help me learn more about the languages and technologies I either use or have a passing interest in. A happy side effect is that I gain an understanding of what my numerous friends who make their living by programming are talking about! I don't particularly care about startups, but then, the beauty of this site is that I don't have to! There's enough here that I find myself perusing the RSS feed and culling stories that, if I had enough time available, I might be interested in. For those articles that I do select, however, I usually read through the associated comment threads, as I find the various opinions and clarifications most enlightening!
• thisNeXTguy8487 12y ago
  I work in IT for a school district in the Bay Area and I love HN for keeping a finger on the heartbeat of what's going on around me! It's one of my virtual portals into a world I feel comfortable within.
• throwaway283719 12y ago
  I'm a quant trader working at a hedge fund. I write a lot of code, but not in the same way that I think most people here think about code. A lot of it is hacky Matlab scripts to test some new research idea. Some of it is hand-crafted C that implements some numerical routine that we need to call a few billion times. Occasionally I throw something together in Python to do some web scraping or parsing task, but that's becoming rarer nowadays. I come to HN because I enjoy coding, and the level of discussion is still probably the best out of any online community I know of (excepting a few very specialized ones... the r/haskell community comes to mind).
• genericone 12y ago
  I'm an applications engineer working in the semiconductor robotics industry. I make robots run faster and more reliable so that more chips can be made. The software I maintain touches >70% of semiconductor products in the world, and that's only a guess based on our market penetration into a single (significantly) necessary step in the semiconductor manufacturing process. I would also classify myself as a wantrepreneur. I have a few apps I am currently executing on, but I can only say that my skills in programming for web and mobile are swiftly increasing. This is only the case because HN has convinced me of the certainty of self-enrichment that comes from startups. I visit HN for the insights into the other tech industry and for non-inflammatory(hah) discussions about current topics. I read comments before I click links, as I typically find the opinions of HN members to be as or more on-topic than the content within the link itself.
  • skrebbel 12y ago
    ASML?
    • Heliosmaster 12y ago
      It has to be. (former NXE:3350B metro here)
• bussiere 12y ago
  I'am part a hypnotist, performer , fire breather , bouncer, and part tech guy and other jobs notably as a fixer in the underground in paris. For me a hacker is someone who see something and want to mod it , dig in it. A hacker is someone who is curious and is active and don't take things for what they are given for. And a hacker is also someone who doubt. There are mechanical hacker, even grandma tips are hack for me. So it would be more relevant to ask who is not a tech guy. Or consider himself / herself a techguy. Hn give me interesting inside and news. And it's always good to be on the edge than other people on different subject. I always have one day or two in advance for the news to other people thanks to HN.
• anigbrowl 12y ago
  I'm a sound engineer, working mainly in Indie film with some electronic music and instrument design on the side. Working in film requires wearing a lot of hats so I'm conversant with most aspects of film development/production. Also, frustrated law student.
• ceades 12y ago
  Government affairs staffer working in Sacramento politics. My field is education but I like to keep tabs on technology and start ups who almost always end up in the legislative realm eventually. One fight I've been watching with interest in the CA legislature is the anti-Uber/Lyft legislation currently pending. We're in the last three weeks of session now and I'm very interested to see where that ends up and whether Gov. Brown signs it. There's nothing more fun than watching a policy fight you don't have a dog in.
• eitally 12y ago
  I'm an IT director with a focus on the digital workplace & advanced tech R&D (e.g. flying quadcopters around a factory to do real time process inspections). So, not the software industry, but still a lot of software stuff.
• atmosx 12y ago
  I am a pharmacist living in a small town of 35-40k people in Northern Greece and my ruby code, which I try to put together in my spare time, is kinda silly :-) do I need to say more? :-p For me HN is a view in the dream-land of the cool kids :-) I love it! Also the most high-quality discussions/views I read on tech or even politics often come from HN.
  • leonth 12y ago
    Haha. Fancy seeing your post again :)
    • atmosx 12y ago
      Same here hehehehe :-)
• presidentender 12y ago
  I've tried to be a programmer a couple of times. Now I can blame mitigating factors, but frankly, I think it's likely I won't go back.
• george88b 12y ago
  I am an analytical chemist. Currently I have a company that provides R&D and Manufacture services for salons that want to launch their own label of hair products.
  • wuschel 12y ago
    Hello George, nice to see a chemist, especially one who managed to claim some market share on his own! With hard/wetware, it is not so easy to get your own company going.. and would love to have my own company. I am a chemist, with a Phd in the field of polymer chemistry, thin films and biomaterials. I did a fair share of small molecule synthesis, polymerizations, simulations and analytics (QPCR, surface plasmons, etc). PM me, please.
• ChadNYC 12y ago
  I'm a Registered Architect working on Hudson Yards, the largest private real estate development in the history of the United States. I've wanted to be an Architect for as long as I can remember. I write software(originally PC based and now web based) to make my life easier. I started coding Basic at a very young age. It came naturally to me. I took a C++ class in high school, but aside from that I'm completely self taught. I'm here because I'm fascinated by the industry and the people. You can't get a better cross section of what is happening in this industry then on this site. Also, maybe one day I'll develop a product that is useful to me and useful to others. So having some background on start-ups could help, right?
  • wdewind 12y ago
    > I write software(originally PC based and now web based) to make my life easier. That sounds cool can you expand?
  • telekid 12y ago
    I'm a sound designer who currently works at Shakespeare in the Park, also in NYC. I'm absolutely fascinated by the Hudson yards project. What exactly is your involvement in that project?
• jreed91 12y ago
  I'm a business analyst for large office furniture manufacturer. I have an interest in the startup culture and enjoy trying out new technologies. This site gives me the chance to be an early adopter for many new technologies. While also providing me insights on all things that are a part of the hacker life.
• brandelune 12y ago
  HN is a fascinating place to read where I can get my daily share of IT wisdom. IT development is shaping a big part of the world we live and it is important to see how everything evolves. I have a small translation/localization company in the middle on Japan and I use as much free software as I can and try to promote them the most I can in the translation community. I learned a bit of basic, pascal, assembly in the 80's and when programming your calculator was the coolest thing you could do in High School.
• bachmeier 12y ago
  I'm an economics professor. I have to program for my research, my hobby is studying programming languages, and entrepreneurship is pretty important for the economy.
  • tomrod 12y ago
    I'm a fan of economic professors.
• leonth 12y ago
  I'm a pharmacist, but since my boss knows I'm good with computers, she put me to manage the IT systems used by the pharmacy department. This role is well-defined and there is at least one full-time staff in each public hospital here doing this, but no software development knowledge is required because there is a layer of IT consultants that supports us on very technical things (e.g. server provisioning, network configuration, integration). What I do is mainly defining requirements and provide content (both clinical and non-clinical). I see HN as a way to keep up with IT in general - especially that all my other colleagues talk about totally different kinds of news. I find discussions well-balanced most of the time, and sometimes wonder "what do HN commenters say?" when I get to a news using other routes. Yes I am a wantrepreneur, if there is such a word. It's pretty cool to (have the perception of) knowing two industries and try to piece them up together.
  • rxmatic 12y ago
    Didn't think I would see another pharmacist on here. Sounds like you're somewhat into informatics. I got a first year residency that had a PGY2 in informatics. I decided that I'm in too much debt to be collecting that much interest for another two years. I used to have an interest in programming when I was in undergrad (engineering major), but I started to get out of the 'scene', for lack of a better word after I was accepted into pharmacy school... I was on reddit way back when programming was a main subreddit and eventually moved to this site when the comments and content when to hell.
• Disruptive_Dave 12y ago
  Biz dev / creative marketing guy here. Startup co-founder and consultant. Absolutely love this place...skip the super technical threads because marketing.
• cjslep 12y ago
  Nuclear engineer by formal education, mostly self-taught in the realm of computing. Enough to get an internship at Cisco during college. Here for all the same reasons OP is, with the addition that the community is by far one of the most enriching and rewarding to be a part of, even if I wind up lurking most of the time.
• tonylemesmer 12y ago
  Product designer / engineer - having said that I have been writing software as a hobby since I was about 7 or 8 years old (I'm 35 now). I see knowing about software, electronics and "technology" as a general knowledge, in the same way that I can speak and read. Hacker News is a fantastic community, filled with rational, clever and moderate contributors who write stuff which is a a pleasure to read and learn from. The rest of the popular web seems in thrall by the new stuff and doesn't see things quite so rationally. Its not easy to pull the wool over the eyes of the HN crowd. I love that kind of interaction, where people have a level of understanding that allows genuine technical merit to be apparent. My new full time job is designing machines to keep sick people alive whilst their bodies are repaired. Something I'd never thought of doing 10 months ago when I worked in consultancy.
• ssivark 12y ago
  I'm a PhD student, doing research in fundamental theoretical physics. My tastes are eclectic (my undergrad degree was in electrical engineering), so among other things I'm interested in FOSS, computer science, tech and random bits of news and worthy reading material that pops up on HN. I'm also mildly interested in the culture in startups and how skilled workers motivate themselves and bootstrap -- I guess a lot of such soft knowledge would translate to a wide variety of situations (eg: academic research). And oh, did I forget to mention the static-blog-generator-pr0n? :P
• bane 12y ago
  I bounce around back and forth in and out of the software industry. I haven't really been a hacker for at least a decade. When I'm in the software industry it's usually more as some kind of management role. I'm usually here for the news and generally high quality discussion.
• incision 12y ago
  I'm in tech, as a sort of sysadmin / strategist, not a developer which based on the HN polls I've seen puts me in a small minority. Though, I'm fast approaching the halfway point of a CS degree as an adult student. I can't recall exactly how I stumbled on HN, but I stick around for the discussion. I regularly learn things on HN as opposed to merely learning of things as I might with other sharing sites. I was about to say community instead of discussion above, but I actually have a pretty negative association with that word as it seems to entail a monoculture which HN isn't - at least not in the ways that matter to me. Specifically, it seems possible to speak freely on HN (for the most part) without being buried or banned in short order. I was enamored with the heavy startup culture on HN for a while, but what I've gleaned suggests to me that if I'm ever to partake it probably won't be as an employee. If anything, a founder hoping to leverage domain-specific knowledge and personal network in creating a long term business.
• jawon 12y ago
  Copywriter. Long time lurker. Interested in startups and online business models and strategy.
• robmiller 12y ago
  I'm an acoustical consultant. I mainly work with architects during the design and construction of schools, offices, and other public spaces. If you're in northwest US and work for a large tech firm, chances are someone in my group has worked on your space--designing interior acoustic environments and keeping obtrusive noises out. I'm also a wantrepreneur with a vision to create better calculation tools for architectural acoustics and noise control. I enjoy seeing new JS libraries on here that help fill in those puzzle pieces and reading the perspectives of others on political and cultural topics.
• jqm 12y ago
  Agronomist by training. Have done a number of things including project management for a company doing public works construction projects for around 10 years. Been programming as a hobby since late teens and have no formal CS education. Recently I took a job as a web developer (I know... career path isn't in my vocabulary, I just do what interests me at the time and let the chips fall where they may). It's my first real programming job. I built some SAAS applications for farms which I maintain and plan to expand in the future. These apps showed what I can do and helped me land my current full time job.
• asafira 12y ago
  I'm a physics PhD student, working on experimental quantum computing. My day-to-day work varies a huge amount, but can generally consist of cleanroom nanofabricaton, circuit design, data processing, machining, and experimental design. I consider consumer technology one of my hobbies, and hackernews lets me keep up with the latest trends in software engineering. I've always been particularly fascinated with technological forces that can have big impacts on the world at large, and new uses/trends in software have played a huge role in that. I like to think that hackernews keeps me grounded to what's the latest and greatest in the world where the "big things" can impact people on a much shorter timescale than the work I currently do. I plan to go into the tech industry when I graduate, and I'm highly considering an internship next summer.
• ASquare 12y ago
  I do continuous improvement projects (using Green Belt Six Sigma training) in my day job. Trying to get a travel focused startup off the ground (http://www.planitwide.com http://www.planitwide.com). Been fascinated with all things tech for a while and am constantly in awe of people who can build stuff. I also firmly believe that inspiration comes from the most random sources and HN fits the bill for both of these things.
• cmsmith 12y ago
  I'm a structural engineer (PhD sounds awkward to say but seems relevant here) doing research on buildings and earthquakes/fires. I have always been competent/interested in programming style hacking, but resistant to moving away from the physical engineering world too much. I hang around HN because I am interested in the hacking/innovation mindset that is popular here especially as it could be tied into the structural/mechanical world.
• hovestol 12y ago
  I'm a recent high school graduate. I got turned on to this by my comp sci teacher, I'll be going to university in a week for computer science, so I'm bending the rules because I'm not in the software industry yet. I totally agree with A, B, and C, but I also really enjoy just the interesting articles I wouldn't find elsewhere. Here I can actually learn as opposed to school (Can I use that as a verb? I can break the rules if I want!).
• J_Corder 12y ago
  I'm a student.I come here for passing the time.
• emhart 12y ago
  I'm a historian? Maybe? I've taken to calling myself a security anthropologist lately. I study the history of security, talk about it, write about it, think about it endlessly. I love this community. I've had amazing conversations in the comments and taken a few of those to email or twitter as well. I know that I would eventually see most of what I read here elsewhere, but this is the only place on the internet where I read the comments.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• freehunter 12y ago
  I'm a hacker, as in I'm employed in Information Security. The other use for the word "hacker". I spend much of my days doing pentests, malware study, and forensic analysis for a multi-national. Lately, with some inspiration from HN, I've started into Python to replace or augment what little I script in Bash to help with my work. I was drawn here because of the name, became disappointed that it was hacking in the sense of coding, stayed because I have nothing better to read. Since Paul Graham has his own forums, I wish Bruce Schneier or Brian Krebs had their own for people like me.
• kyllo 12y ago
  I guess I'm on the fringe of the tech industry. I work as a systems analyst in the IT department of a logistics company. My primary job is not to write code or develop applications, but being able to write scripts and small utility applications really comes in handy when analyzing data. I write lots and lots of SQL and regular expressions for work, I do tons of grepping / sedding and am quite comfortable with bash, but I don't consider that coding. Programming is also as a hobby for me, I have some side projects which are mostly Python and JS stuff, and a little Java. I also have an interest in functional languages. So there's loads of interesting content for me hear.
• Tad_Ghostly 12y ago
  I'm working on innovation in education as part of a small team working independently within a moderately large organization. I ended up here while reading about different lean startup methods. I dabble in client-side coding to make some prototypes, but certainly don't consider myself a programmer or hacker (unless you count the times I ferociously enter passwords in a sad attempt to obtain access to our own systems). I get stories and perspective. I love reading a story, having my own take, then jumping in the comments to see how others view the same information. There are so many lessons I would rather learn from someone else rather than from my own experience...that's why I'm here. Also, thanks for posting something I am qualified to answer, it prompted me to finally stop lurking.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• deadlast 12y ago
  I'm an recent high school graduate. I come here because, despite high test scores, I don't know what I want to do with my life, and I feel like being here might help me.
  • ced 12y ago
    What do you like? What was the most exciting thing you did in the last two years?
    • deadlast 12y ago
      Hmm. I have a hard time naming specifics. I enjoy math when I understand it, but I have the hardest time in Calculus of any of my classes. I was near the best in my class in Biology and Chemistry but I didn't really enjoy them- if I did I probably would have gone to the larger UC than the smaller liberal arts school I'm going to attend. Everything else was a mixed bag. I enjoy writing when it's on something I'm interested about, I dislike it when it's rote, but what I'm interested in is usually fleeting. That tends to apply to motivation too. I can get aroused for a lot of work in one case, and in another similar case I can't be bothered. I guess my favorite piece of work in the last two years was a project in regular economics. We were divided into groups and ordered to create a business model in report style. We created Fatoline. Fatoline was dreamed up in response to an unsustainable America. This unsustainability is rooted in the suburban commute lifestyle- people drive everywhere, consuming vast amounts of gasoline and gaining weight. The Fatoline company has two public fronts, its liposuction service and its gasoline service. We take the fatty liposuctioned tissue, put it through some huge centrifuges, introduce some modified lipases (modified through science magic) and heat and boom, we have gasoline, which is sold through our other front. This keeps the automobiles running, the people skinny, and keeps the suburban structure of the U.S. stable. Only now, instead of nasty foreign oil coming in, we have the wholesome, local fat-conversion company keeping our lifestyle afloat. Unfortunately, after crunching the numbers, it turned out that for this system to work, each person would have to produce some obscene amount of fat each year, somewhere in the thousands or ten thousands. No matter though. Once we figure out how to get people to be able to get that big, the dream is definitely alive. I guess I liked the project because it involved a little bit of everything.
• ari_smith 12y ago
  I'm a high school student (to be entering my senior year). I would definitely not call myself a hacker by any means, and while I am very passionate about math and science, at the moment, I would first and foremost identify myself as a jazz bassist (however, his may be due to the fact that I am currently at the Berklee college of contemporary music, studying in their five-week summer program). I have in the past ventured a bit into programming, but not very seriously, and my biggest achievement was probably a roguelike written in brainf*ck that I abandoned half-way through. Although I am very passionate about jazz, I intend to pursue a career in science (though I am not sure exactly what). I use HN because I can easily find many math/science/technology related articles that I find very interesting. Also, I find that the articles and posts on here tend to give me a different perspective on a situation than one might find elsewhere.
• molbioguy 12y ago
  I'm a senior scientist at a biotech company. I do engage in some software development now, but my formal training is as a bench scientist. I read HN because I enjoy the intelligent topics and conversations.
• markmassie 12y ago
  Nuclear engineer here. Definitely not in the software industry, but still do a bit of coding, albeit mostly in Fortran because (most) reactor design software stays pretty far from the bleeding edge. I come to HN for the startup culture discussions. Even though my field is pretty far from the software/tech field, it's pretty amazing how much of the startup experience remains the same. For those interested, my startup, Transatomic, is developing a molten salt reactor that's cheaper than coal and (hopefully) as cheap as natural gas, just without the greenhouse gas emissions. We just closed our first round of VC funding from Peter Thiel and Founders Fund a few days ago. More details here: http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/08/05/nuclear-waste-startup-transatomic-power-gets-2m-from-founders-fund/ http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/08/05/nuclear-waste-start...
  • lifeisstillgood 12y ago
    Forgive me for leapin in here, but one does not often get the chance to meet nuclear scientists (well on HN it's more likely which is I guess the point) Anyway - I mentally write off nuclear power from the list of useful alternative sources because of the enormous pre-generation costs, the running costs, the politics of nuclear weaponry and the decommissioning costs (and yes this is almost entirely about traditional reactors) How do you escape being in the nuclear industry dominated by the above seemingly negative problems - how much of your success is dominated by selling a mousetrap than building a better one?
    • wcummings 12y ago
      Seems to have worked out OK for France
      • lifeisstillgood 12y ago
        I meant the whole "as a startup in the nuclear industry I don't have the backing of an major nation state, I don't have a proven technical track record, I am in an industry with a PR problem only slightly better than chemical weapons and the major reason to exist was to build nukes, which we kind of have plenty now" How does he play that set of cards? It's no impossible and I do think someone needs to play that hand well, I just wonder - why him, why now? What's his secret sauce?
• selleck 12y ago
  I am 32 and in Software Sales. I am busting my butt to get into the software industry through coursera, edx, udacity, books and side projects. I come here for learning resources that are often posted and to keep my ear to the ground on what is happening in the tech/start up space.
• asoplata 12y ago
  Another PhD student, in computational neuroscience (modeling of thalamocortical circuits). The difference between the level of code-sharing and code community between general purpose software and scientific software is just astounding. In computational neuro-modeling at least (as opposed to very intensive bio-analysis like genomics), there's incredibly little sharing of code or interchangeability, outside of [ModelDB](http://senselab.med.yale.edu/ModelDB/ http://senselab.med.yale.edu/ModelDB/), although I've heard systems biology-modeling (like with CellML) is in a better state. I love this site for many reasons, e.g. searching "site:ycombinator.com <search term>" is one of the best sources of finding modern opinions on languages, libraries, the state of coding in certain places, and most of all some of the best opinions on what can act as good introductory materials on anything software/langs (in addition to stackoverflow). It's nice to have a finger on different tech scenes and where people, sometimes, are willing to call each other on BS. Oppositely, it's cool to see posts about a product/service and see that the actual company actively responds to comments here in a lively fashion. One of the biggest reasons for me has been seeing whenever's the occasional open academia article or movement starting to spawn, whether it be open access, open data (e.g. [dat](http://dat-data.com/) http://dat-data.com/)), or my favorite, open code. There's an unbelievable amount of reinventing the software wheel that goes on with a ton of PhDs, and the FOSS community proves that doesn't have to be the case. Trying to take the lessons it's learned to the sphere of science is something that an increasing amount of people are thankfully interested in, and this site is one of the only ways I've heard about initiatives in that regard - most notably, [Mozilla Science Lab](http://mozillascience.org/ http://mozillascience.org/)
• bagua 12y ago
  I'm a 16 year old kid in Sydney who's just finishing school. The extend of my "Hacking" is a few small Java/C programs that I write when I need to do something, and don't want to do it by hand.
• taksintik 12y ago
  Finance / Acquisitions guy... I'm like 3M.. I don't make things but I can make things better.. Can't code a lick but understand how to develop frameworks into profit generating entities.
  • graham1776 12y ago
    What kind of companies/entities do you work with?
• hbharadwaj 12y ago
  Former Product Manager. Currently a strategy consultant in IT space. On my way into bootstrapping something and HN gives me the inspiration, knowledge etc., Also, looking to get back into Product Management someday.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  • PeterWhittaker 12y ago
    At the risk of seeming condescending, I'd like to compliment you on your writing: The ability to express one's self so clearly and effectively is rare, though perhaps more common on HN than elsewhere, and the ability to do so as a teenager is rarer still. Yes, perhaps I draw great conclusions from three sentences, but they are three well-constructed, articulate, and pithy compound sentences. I fancy that I can hear your voice as I read your words, and having a voice is something many writers never achieve. I strongly recommend that you write every day, even if only for your own purposes and even if you dispose of what you have written. Regardless of your industry or vocation, the ability to express yourself, to express complex thoughts cleanly and clearly, will serve you well the rest of your days.
  • definity 12y ago
    I'm 31, and my daughter is 14; we're unschoolers and I'm often sharing cool stuff with her that I find on HN. I'm glad to find other teens here, because I keep telling my daughter there ARE people out there who are like her and not into the same dumb mass-market crap. You rock.
• ejr 12y ago
  I'm mostly an office worker and make crafts at home that I sell online - most boring daytime endeavour yet. I too am a "wantrepreneur" and I'm thinking of getting something started soon. Nothing "tech" though. From the community, I get a surprising amount of non-tech/hacker news, stories and comments and new insights about life and work that I didn't imagine otherwise.
• kkylin 12y ago
  I'm a math prof, my research is in applied & computational math, mainly dynamical systems and numerical methods. I do a fair bit of coding in my work (and studied CS/AI as an undergrad before getting PhD in math), and am interested in many of the topics that get posted here -- programming languages, technology & society, advances in the sciences, etc. I also have many friends in the software industry, and have a passing interest in startup culture.
• wollw 12y ago
  I'm an artist (well, a student really) with an interest in mathematics and computer science abstractions. I like to create work related to and inspired by technology. Given how important these fields of knowledge have become I believe that creating artwork from them is an important way to reflect on the state of contemporary society. I guess I do consider myself a bit of a hacker (I design my own circuit boards and write my own software for my projects), but I'm not really affiliated with the tech community outside of the internet and mostly hang out with other artists. edit: I guess it kind of goes without saying, but what I get out of HN in particular is a combination of keeping my foot in technology and reading interesting news.
• known 12y ago
  Did you sense https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroup_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroup_bias
• cessor 12y ago
  I study psychology. I have a masters in computer science and I am amazed every day anew how much of my old skill is very usefull within other domains. I don't label myself a hacker.
• ratixis 12y ago
  I'm not in the software industry per se, but was. Up until last August I was running my own software development company that had just taken a big hit when our biggest client pulled out with no real warning. Fast forward to today, I'm now a qualified secondary school teacher in the UK, teaching Business, Computing and Japanese. I get the urge to come back to full-time programming from time to time, but genuinely love being out of 'burnout' mode. I really enjoy coming here because I still love keeping on top of tech and entrepreneur news, want to stay ahead of the curve, and hey, you never know, I might find a company that is looking to 'disrupt' secondary education in a way that I 100% believe in. Haven't seen it yet, but some companies are getting close (Khan Academy, looking at you!). It also keeps me from spiraling into my "I'm not doing enough!" mentality that I have for myself, and inspires the wantrepreneur side of me.
• danimalia1 12y ago
  I am an epidemiologist -- currently working as a research director in academia and spending most of my time working in R. I originally got on here to look at a project my brother had done. I stay on because I find it very interesting to see how the tech crowd interprets health and population studies.
• najhr999 12y ago
  I work in technical production and fabrication for a sports marketing agency. We build unique consumer experiences for our major sportswear client. I look to HN for ideas and inspiration that I can use to fill the gap from ideas to implementation. For example gamification of a shoe try on experience, to show the consumer the performance of the product. HN is my go to for a way to pass meetings. Always interested in collaborating if anyone has any ideas in this domain.
• hardmath123 12y ago
  I'm a high schooler/coder, but I like to think of myself as a hacker. I dropped by to make the case that being in the software industry and being a 'hacker' are not correlated very strongly. The hacker culture revolves around code because the culture likes code, but the culture itself has a deeper significance than the ability to make a photo-sharing site or something. See http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html Anyhow, for the sake of adding to discussion: I browse HN for the interesting links, especially reading others' blogs, and the distinct lack of memes you find on other link-sharing sites like Reddit.
• nsomniact 12y ago
  Just wanted to give thanks to the OP for posting this :)
  • graham1776 12y ago
    I never dreamed of the response that I got, so glad for HN. Thanks to everyone who responded :)
    • notahacker 12y ago
      I'm not sure why I missed this thread; it's almost literally made for me ;-) I'm not a hacker but I'm here today because.... I sell SaaS. I work in aviation, which on the commercial side of the organization is as enthusiast-driven and fly-by-the-seat of the pants hacky as tech companies (but with suits). I'm interested in alternative finance - more as a to get money to people that most need it than out of any delusional desire to get rich off it - and have a degree in economics. I built my first website in 2000 but my side projects exist more in my head than in source control. I like to write, but don't blog, not least because I've a sneaking suspicion the sum total of all the time spent by all the visitors to my blog would be less than the time I spent writing it. Nobody is reading this either :). I even read sometimes read articles on the joy of Clojure or Go or Haskell and try to understand why people get excited about monads. I have a latent* desire to start a startup, and went to a startup meet yesterday to deny being interested in starting a startup
• cJ0th 12y ago
  MBA-to-be here. I am into computers since early childhood. Mainly, I enjoy topics on Programming (especially python), Linux and entrepreneurship even though chances are I'll always suck at the first two items (though I am good enough to use them as "secret weapons" occasionally) and never do the latter.
• raihan 12y ago
  I actually work in arts and entertainment! You can see the most recent project that I managed here: http://artalliance.com http://artalliance.com So why would someone artistically-minded come to HN? Because the world is changing--in law, in technology, etc. And being on top of that is ALWAYS helpful, especially with such a knowledgeable community.
• lomapur 12y ago
  I'm 21 years old student of hungarian philology. I'm absolutely fascinated with all the new technologies and (mainly) software startups that are presented here; maybe I chose wrong path in my life but I'm obsessed with Hungary and learning so there's that. I hope Hacker News will grow big.
• WCityMike 12y ago
  I'm a legal assistant for a mid-size law firm that mostly caters to other small- and medium-sized businesses. I basically just enjoy the topics discussed here.
• paulornothing 12y ago
  Statistician by title, more of a project manager supervising data collection on a large scale. I aspire to code, mostly like this site because there is interesting material and reddit feels always the same.
• joeclark77 12y ago
  I'm a professor of information systems (MIS) and, although I like to think of myself as a hacker, I'm probably not. I was a web developer years ago (1995-2001) and continue to program various things on hobby projects and in my research (some social science simulations in R and Python). My main teaching is a capstone project course for IS undergrads, which started out as a traditional project management (PMBOK) course, and has evolved into a more practical exploration of software development from version control, to scrum, to testing, to DevOps. Hacker News has been a great source of ideas for what to explore in class. The worst thing about my job is that I have no time to become really good at anything, instead having to be a dabbler in a hundred different things. (Or maybe that just means I'm a "full stack" guy? Heh.) The best thing about my job is that I have a couple hundred students come through my classes each year, so I can assign them to try these things out and I can see how they work.
• Broken_Hippo 12y ago
  I've never had a tech job. Right now, I don't even have a job. I had always worked in service fields - my last 8 years or so was spent as a supervisor in a pharmacy. Right now, I moved across an ocean and start language/civics classes next week. I guess I'm a student, then? I read here because I am interested in technology. I like to see where things are headed. I see hope in many of the articles and have strange future views (spouse got me interested in the Singularity movement... 30 years, they say). I have considered starting a business, and can apply much of the things I read. Also, I find the site interesting. The articles work for me. And I'm not all that scared to read the comments - I don't often lose a little hope for humanity when I read them because the community has a brain :)
• sergioschuler 12y ago
  Just a digital marketer here (and twice failed entrepreneur). Still looking for the one that will solve a real and profitable problem.
• pstrazzulla 12y ago
  I started reading this 4-5 years ago when I was an investment banker. It's a genuine source for information and I like that. Since then I've taught myself to code and founded a startup.
• rstephen 12y ago
  I am in procurement and warehouse management in the oil and gas industry. I don't really know why I'm here. I worked with Kale for several years and found him to be an interesting redneck. His actual name is Cooter, which he prefers to be called. Most of this stuff is over my head, but I do find interesting things to read from time to time.
• yannickw 12y ago
  I'm an evolutionary biologist - using bioinformatics and genomics tools to understand how genes underly the evolution of social behavior evolves in ants and bees [http://yannick.poulet.org http://yannick.poulet.org]. Doing this definitely requires a lot of hacking. Some of us call it genome hacking. Now I'm at Queen Mary U London since 2.5 years where I've been given the opportunity to start my own research lab. I read HN because starting up a research lab is similar to starting a company (team size; project focus; use of cutting edge tech for analysis, development & collaboration).
• definity 12y ago
  I'm just interested in people who are interested in things, if that makes sense. I dabble in a variety of things... was generally into technology all my life (at various times being light or heavy into programming, hardware, software, any number of things); have a degree in math; work as an editor; freelance doing technical helpdesk work for Wordpress plugins; and just generally like reading new things and hearing from smart people, which is why I'm here. Also, I've read HN for a couple years now, and this thread is the first one that prompted me to comment. I've really enjoyed reading it!