What's your job?

[mrk]

Sounds interesting...how did you get into this? Is there a career path, specific qualifications to complete?

If I recall for forensics they wanted candidates to have a degree or relevent transferrable skills. I don't have a degree . If you're in any other discipline of similar nature then things are easier still but the majority of people joining seem to be fresh out of university with forensic degrees or similar. The older ones seem to be ex police or services who transfer over though. Clearence is required either way though.

My experience working on mobile devices and technical skills got me in.

As for defence/aerospace role, degree helps but the right experience and mindset is more important as is your nationality credentials as you're not getting clearence otherwise!

 

[inferno]

Sorry to hear that. Are any of the freight companies hiring? Is that something you could move to? What was the 787 like to fly?

I will apply for some jobs but the market is so flooded with pilots I don't think there will be many available. 787 is nice to fly with the hud, climb rate is really bad and its difficult to do nice landings, super fuel efficient though! 777 is a beast, very stable and lovely to land.

 

[Ev0]

I had to laugh at this, as i work on the engineering side of a big software dev company, and frequently get roped into escalations where a customer is unhappy about something because the presales/sales guy has clearly overstretched the capabilities of the solution / undersized a solution due to budget constraints.

I’m also in tech sales as a product SME at one of the large software/tech companies, specialising in some of their security products.

So far in the time I’ve been doing it I’ve never once stretched the truth on capabilities, would be easy to do initially but would soon fall flat if a customer asked for more details

Sometimes it’s even been the product devs who have done that, and then I get caught out with the customer when something we’ve said will work a certain way doesn’t...

As for the job itself, I fell into it and wish I’d started doing this sort of thing sooner as it’s great.

Get to work with different customers, play with techy bits, and the hours are extremely flexible. As long as the work that needs doing gets done it doesn’t matter when I’m working most of the time, some weeks will be busy, some will be quiet, probably all evens out over time but it’s great having the flexibility.

Largely home based but with some travel, occasionally to nice places abroad a couple of times a year in the past, not likely in current climate though!

And being honest the pay also makes it good, decent base salary plus benefits that come with being in sales.

 

[Blinkz]

I will apply for some jobs but the market is so flooded with pilots I don't think there will be many available. 787 is nice to fly with the hud, climb rate is really bad and its difficult to do nice landings, super fuel efficient though! 777 is a beast, very stable and lovely to land.

There aren’t even that many companies hiring at the moment as near all airlines have made some of their pilots redundant. I believe there is a very small amount of positions in cargo as they slightly expand due to PPE needed but they are few and far between and tend to be 747s.

Inferno you were/are in the sand pit if I remember right? Are you going to stay out there or try other places?

Sadly my A340 rating is nearly useless now and there aren’t many A330 operators hiring. As you say it’s going to be tough finding ways to fill the time lol

 

[SideWinder]

If I recall for forensics they wanted candidates to have a degree or relevent transferrable skills. I don't have a degree . If you're in any other discipline of similar nature then things are easier still but the majority of people joining seem to be fresh out of university with forensic degrees or similar. The older ones seem to be ex police or services who transfer over though. Clearence is required either way though.

My experience working on mobile devices and technical skills got me in.

As for defence/aerospace role, degree helps but the right experience and mindset is more important as is your nationality credentials as you're not getting clearence otherwise!

Interesting, thank you!

Feel like i would need to go back to Uni then.

 

[Woden]

Transport Team Manager for a larged delivery company. Class 1s, not vans.

Pros are I work with a lot of people, lots of veriaty. And the company had paid for my CPC, which means when I retire I can freelance as a external manager and get good money for half a day a week.

Cons are, as I'll be going on the operators licence, I can go to prison of things go badly. That and I work with a lot of people.

 

[Adam_151]

(approved)Electrician / Qualified Supervisor / Electrical test engineer / Electrical designer

Most of the time I'm carrying out the five yearly condition reports on the installations of commericial buildings, throw in being one of the qualified supervisors (responsible for ensuring our install teams keep upto standards) along with a few small install jobs, fault finding, a bit of electrical design work, dealing with the systems that look after our electrical certification, and it seems level 0 IT support before escallation to the IT support contractor

Pros - Reasonable take home pay, freedom to schedule my own workloads, its reasonably varied most of the time.

Cons - Sometimes hours end up needing to be errattic and long dispite being in control of them myself (switching stuff off is normally done out of hours), sometimes stressfull (sometimes the shutdown windows can be tight and to get everything back up and running is a pain), there are always reports to write (thats worse since COVID as most of them are done from home).

 

[ED209]

I sit on my arse for 9 hours a day answering calls when people have problems. (This has not changed with the covid19 so still working full time)

deal with all sorts of dental X-ray equipment, software problems and also with resellers of our products In other countries. If it’s not calls then it’s e mails when the phones are not so busy.

been working from home since the start of Feb and really enjoying it as much more relaxed environment and no travel time at all.

been at this job for just over 12 years now, my lord time flies.

 

[Fluke?]

IT Tech at an FE college with a large art/creative base.

Pros - good pension, reasonable hours, huge variety in the role so get involved in basically anything pc, mac and server or av related. Access to cheap or free software (office, adobe cc, autodesk), nice to help art students in their end of year show and get to feel you're able to contribute and make an impact.

Cons- crap pay and extremely limited progression as far as pay. In my particular role I am the most senior non infrastructure based tech so spend most of my day stopping the other techs from making a hash of things and for anything that I don't know I have to work it out for myself (with the help of dr google/edugeek).

 

[alexakasloth]

Interesting, thank you!

Feel like i would need to go back to Uni then.

If it's of help - you can get a second student loan to fund part time STEM degrees.

 

[regulus]

I work as a client consultant on large infrastructure projects. Part technical, part babysitting.

 

[shaggyd]

I work as a Flight Simulator Engineer, supporting and developing virtual training equipment for Fast Jet Training pilots. The training equipment varies from VR in customized Prepar3D, classroom desktop trainers, classroom medium fidelity trainers (pseudo realistic cockpit with semi-realistic flight model and surround screens) and Full Mission Simulators (270 degree projected dome display with realistic cockpit, switches and controls with realistic flight model. Motion simulated with servo motor G-Seat and real-time force-feedback controls.).
Pros:
Get to fly the kit everyday, to test it is serviceable for training or when they complain that the fubiderkin switch doesn't work...
Gratification in identifying fault with the fubiderkin switch was a failure in the seat to stick interface...
Job never gets boring as you have to learn multi systems - IT, CAN-BUS, Pneumatic, Hydraulics (on deceased Seaking Search & Rescue simulator), linkage interfacing (analogue-digital & vice-versa)..etc
Cons:
The customer is always right until they are grossly over-proven to be incorrect.
You have to spend 100's of hours and £100000's to modify the kit because it didn't work as intended by the customer (see above).
Shortly before installation, your company's legal section has eventually looked at the original contract and discovered that the customer was wrong, but they still want the mod and are going to pay for it.
Customer accepts mod, but then raises issues that it is wrong, 10 years later.

 

[Screenbeat]

So you maintain the HVAC kit, or the actual lab equipment?

HVAC. I don't touch the lab stuff if I can help it. I do currently have a strange desire to want to freeze something in the liquid nitrogen tanks though.

Suggestions welcome.

 

[Ev0]

I’m also in tech sales as a product SME at one of the large software/tech companies, specialising in some of their security products.

Also forgot to add this to list as a pro, doesn’t matter where I live to do the job As it’s a combination of home based and travel to see customers.

This is huge for me as I don’t live in or near any of the big cities, only penalty is when I do need to travel it maybe takes me a little longer but it’s not as bad as people expect it to be (2.5 hours to London).

Wouldn’t do a job where I couldn’t work like this, I’ve done the whole living away during the week thing many years ago and it sucks.

This way I get the benefit of a well paying role whilst living in an area that generally has poor opportunities available, certainly at much lower salaries.

 

[ivrytwr3]

Palliative care doctor

I look after those with a palliative condition, and we consider ourselves 'specialists' at symptom control.
It's not all doom and gloom. In fact, it's the loveliest and happiest place I've ever worked.
About half the patients we have go home with their pain, nausea, agitation etc much more controlled (albeit with a life limiting condition).

Upmost respect for this - i couldn't do it.

 

[ivrytwr3]

I'm currently a digital forensic Investigator for the police but am due to leave shortly for the defence sector. Prior to this I have been in IT since 2006.

Had a colleague do this role in the military. Due to other team members either sick, deployed etc, for several months he was the sole Digital Investigator - recently diagnosed with PTSD and has left the military altogether.

I moved out of a military Intelligence role approx 2 years ago, which was the most rewarding and fun job I've done. 10 years though and i was getting burned out. So now head up a military Cyber Protection Team:

Pros:
- Advising on how to protect some our most secure systems.
- Public sector in the services so pretty secure.
- Get to manage a team of geeks.
- Decent pay, good pension.
- We're a new team and upper management seem very happy with the direction in which the team are going, so much so that the docs and procedures we created have been adopted by the military.

Cons:
- Training started off well, SANS etc, but as public sector, training funds are usually the first to go - haven't had any decent training for a while now.
- Sometimes outside agencies/upper management suggest new tools or configurations and get upset when we can't deploy their suggestions due to restrictions in place on the systems.
- Anything outside the norm of the day to day business is brought to my team, heavy workload due to this.

 

[Screenbeat]

Had a colleague do this role in the military. Due to other team members either sick, deployed etc, for several months he was the sole Digital Investigator - recently diagnosed with PTSD and has left the military altogether.

I moved out of a military Intelligence role approx 2 years ago, which was the most rewarding and fun job I've done. 10 years though and i was getting burned out. So now head up a military Cyber Protection Team:

Pros:
- Advising on how to protect some our most secure systems.
- Public sector in the services so pretty secure.
- Get to manage a team of geeks.
- Decent pay, good pension.
- We're a new team and upper management seem very happy with the direction in which the team are going, so much so that the docs and procedures we created have been adopted by the military.

Cons:
- Training started off well, SANS etc, but as public sector, training funds are usually the first to go - haven't had any decent training for a while now.
- Sometimes outside agencies/upper management suggest new tools or configurations and get upset when we can't deploy their suggestions due to restrictions in place on the systems.
- Anything outside the norm of the day to day business is brought to my team, heavy workload due to this.

WOW!!!! This all sounds like jobs people have in movies!!!!

 

[esmozz]

I will apply for some jobs but the market is so flooded with pilots I don't think there will be many available. 787 is nice to fly with the hud, climb rate is really bad and its difficult to do nice landings, super fuel efficient though! 777 is a beast, very stable and lovely to land.

737 Skipper here. I don't expect to see the inside of the flight deck this year and will consider myself extremely lucky if I pick up a job next year. I got through Sept 11th (albeit training at the time) and 2008, but I think there's a good chance my career may not recover after this. I really haven't figured out what to do next.

 

[Mrs Seabiscuit]

Compliance advisor for a nursing agency.
Pro`s
I am very methodical and this is a must in compliance so for this it goes hand in hand
Helping people
Bonus

Cons
Compliance list for audit too long
People trying to get out of compliance
Booking consultants trying to get compliance fast tracked

 

[Nick1881]

X-Ray Field Service Engineer.

I repair, service and install industrial X-Ray machines used for NDT (Non Destructive Testing). I also do UT calibrations again NDT equipment.

I cover the whole of the UK.