I work for Satan, I am an SQE for an Ad network. Sorry about those banners.

I'm a financial analyst for a retail/contract company in the U.S. As far as computing goes, low and high level programming (education and self-taught) helped me with my career (SAS/SQL).

My grandpa bought me a NES when I was 6 and I played with Apple IIgs and C64 hardware (neighbor or school computes).

In 1990 at the age of 10 my Dad finally purchased our first home computer (a 286 8/12mhz), when the Super Nintendo came out I'd pretty much stopped playing games on consoles and had switched to computers for all gaming.

During my time with the 286 (and the prior computers) I was pretty much limited to the software and couldn't really play with the hardware since it wasn't mine to mess with but in 1995/1996 we purchased a 486DX4/100 and that's when I got into messing around with computer hardware both at home and at school. I purchased Mechwarrior 2 the day before we got the computer and it didn't work with the POS Trident video card so I purchased a Cirrus Logic video card from a friend. Imagine going from a 286 to a 486 and Mechwarrior 2 at that!

Joined the USAF in Dec 1998 as a 3C0X1 (Computers) and did a little bit of everything System Administrator wise.

Left Active Duty in Dec 2004 mostly due to noticing the military being waaay behind tech wise but also being fed up with military BS (although I did join the AF Guard) and got a civilian job making 20k+ more than I was making in the miilitary..

Worked at this civilian job for the past 7 years doing Sys Admin, not high stress at all and able to work on a bunch of different things but no funding at all for IT and no raises, was getting the feeling it was time to move on just like when I left my miitary job.

Volunteered to go to Afghanistan and left in Nov 2012 and got back at the end of June 2013. (Complete waste of my time career wise but hey retirement points!) Halfway through the deployment I was informed by my boss that my civilian job had eliminated all of their IT so now I was jobless. Hooray!

I've been networking with some friends since I got back so looks like I may have another Sys Admin job lined up which I'll hopefully hear more about next week. Aiming for at least 10k more than my last job.

I really don't feel liking working at all for a year or so. There's alot of things I'd like to research\study and since I work so hard at whatever job I do I really can't bring myself to find any energy for personal development in my off time.

Everyone seems to want to push you towards management as you get older but all I've ever seen out of management is something I do not see as enjoyable. It's very difficult for me to even take care of myself and I really don't like being around other people (I'm single and I love it!! and I fucking hate kids). Way I see it is if I get too old where I cannot find a permanent job then I'll just do contract work, there's always going to be some old computers out there that need to be fixed. 😀

The only way that VOGONS relates to my job is customer support part (Answering questions, researching issues, etc).

I divide my time between being a contract tech. Support guy, freelance programmer, music producer and music creator (both the synthetic and physical instrument kinds).

My first real job was actually a programming position with Neufeld Learning Systems, an educational software company primarily producing math software. That lasted two years and ended for a variety of reasons. My second real job was calling businesses all day long and asking them to take 20-minute long surveys... yeah, that one went as well as you might expect. :P

That last job however really sent my sleeping disorder into a frenzy since I was pushing myself so hard to be at work regardless of how sleepy I was or wasn't. Eventually I nearly completely lost my ability to fight my somewhat random sleeping patterns and I've been at the mercy of them since. :/

So now I'm just hoping that one of my projects eventually takes off and makes me a livable income while my father helps support me with food and shelter for the time being. My attempts to get money from the government as a result of my inability to hold a steady job has been less than successful, despite all the programs we supposedly have in place for such people in Canada.

...yeah, it's not a very fun story. That's why I'm doing my best to write a better ending! :)

I'm a sys admin for a small regional credit union. It's basically just me and one subordinate in the IT department, we do pretty well anything to do with IT. From general help desk for staff and members of the public using our services, to Windows, Linux, and Novell server admininstration, network administration etc.
I'm also responsible for the banking system which I recently migrated from a SPARC server running Solaris 9 to a new IBM AIX system. The banking software itself runs on a multi-value database called Rocket UniVerse which is derived from PICK. It even has its own programming language called PICK BASIC. It's one of the most obscure and confusing things I've ever come across but I have been teaching myself about it over the years and I find it quite interesting.

I'm continuing my father's business, a manufacturing/equipment company that deals with and equips places that prepare food or have a similar hygienic interest (restaurants, hotels, hospitals, slaughterhouses, etc...)

I've been all over the map. Studied comp sci in college but didn't really enjoy programming so instead I taught myself 3D animation (3D Studio r4 & MAX) and moved to Los Angeles to work on video games and movies. Had a lot of wild experiences out there and worked on some big titles, but eventually even creative work starts to just feel like work. After four years the excitement wore off and I moved home to New York. Got a real estate license and dabbled in day trading but didn't get far with either so I went to law school. Graduated in 2010 and have been doing legal work ever since - nothing exciting, no court appearances or litigation, and it's not terribly lucrative. I'm getting restless again and have been doing some creative writing on the side, and soon I'll be moving to the Bay Area for a few months to write and enjoy a change of scenery while I support myself with a legal day job. Sadly I had to pack my computer collection into a storage unit here in NY, but I'll bring my iBook G4 to use as my primary system while on the west coast.

I've been stuck for the longest time filling an odd job position which involves e-commerce development, programming (PHP and VBA), web design and graphics - in fact, I've been doing too many things to gain real in-depth experience in any one of them, unfortuantely.

badmofo wrote:

An interest in vintage computers, I assume, generally means an interest in modern computing too, which for me has lead to an I.T career.

Not necessarily... I don't particularly like the direction that IT and computing in general seem to be headed these days, and there's a good chance that my next job won't have anything to do with the field.

nothing in computers, just love of old stuff that bring memories...

i do car mechanics and metal work... something like this :
Before :

AFTER:

I need you to cut some fan holes in my full tower case Amigaboy 😜

Heh, alot of IT type of jobs here 😉

I'm a logistics coordinator for oil exploration drilling.

I am a web developer and systems/network administrator for a small software company.

It is not surprising that so many of us IT guys love retro computing. In my case, DOS and old games helped get me where I am today.

I'm the heir to a vast empire. I watch over my growing army of heirs.

I'm a lawyer and starting up a consulting business for law firms and companies with Asian-language research and analysis needs. I've been an amateur programmer since I was 11 and agree that the problem-solving skills you learn are fantastic. Tackling a huge personal project that I initially didn't have anywhere near the skills for taught me many lessons, most importantly that any difficulty can be overcome with persistence.

Hi guys, I'm a musician. I teach flamenco guitar here in Granada and I'm also a music producer and worked in several videogames..
cheers!

Wow people do some interesting things!

Take care Dominus, you know what they say: heir today, gone tomorrow. Although in my case it was hair 🙁

^ don't worry, mine decided to go on a trip as well 🤣 🤣 🤣

Studied computer science at university, working as a software developer, same job for close to 9 years now (customizing an ERP system).
I started programming shortly after my father got our first PC, I must have been 13 or 14 at that time. It was kind of obvious that I'd continue working with computers.