Do you solve novel technical problems at work, or do you mostly work with presentation and application of existing solutions? If the former and you've not obtained a doctorate please do be sure to make yourself heard. I've not had much luck in the search for occupations to preserve my sanity after academia (perhaps it's just that I'm not very skilled at searching). In the context of specialization, that we are what we do terrifies me.
I work for a company that designs hardware and my usual tasks involve making sure that open-source software works well with said hardware. This means both adding support for new hardware features and optimizing software for the hardware. This sometimes involves novel problems, but it mostly involves endless measurements and testing with very little actual programming.
Why did you leave academia?
>>2
I hope the work life balance is at least decent; that sounds fairly unenjoyable to me.
>>3
My language was imprecise, and I also misspelled repetitive. I'll complete my bachelors in (pure) math next semester thereafter I begrudgingly plan to enroll in a masters program of some sort.
>>1 It's not assembly line work where you're a micromanaged excuse for a 15 dollar piece of plastic shit to get assembled 200 times an hour with sweat in your eyes and about six hours of free time a week watching television to keep your soul stirring inside the shell.
Be thankful you're living, drink up and go home.
>>5 Are you okay? You look ill.
I work with the stuff my college made (sub par reinvented wheel), to build standard applications.
>>4
Why not stay in academia then? You will probably have to teach and beg for grant money but in exchange you will get to work on novel and important problems. If you enter the labour market the only problem you will ever work on is making your bosses richer.
>>8
A doctorate is an immense investment. Anyway, my standards aren't so high as to require the puzzlers be linked to cutting edge of research; puzzlers without an answer key would suffice. I doubt much university work is important, the last sentence is lifestylism. I don't care about either.
>>1
I think this exists, but it requires that you both have a very high skill level and get very lucky. I'm not going to count on getting anything like this, just going to do the best I can I suppose.
Macro and program data entry please.
Get me some chopped cheese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gu0v2ITeYU
>>1
The vast majority of life is "bread and butter" work meaning you're normally applying very well understood solutions to common situations. There are indeed plenty of situations where novel ideas are developed to solve old and new problems, but there are fewer employers who understand the value of your novel idea thus, there aren't many employers who are willing to pay you a salary/wage for your novel work.
Weren't computers and automation supposed to solve the "bread and butter" work?
Computers solved the computing work.
>>14
Computers do not think for themselves, computers only act as instructed by a programmer. There needs to be a person with expert skills who understands how to instruct a computer so that the computer behaves for the benefit of the computer user.