For the last year I’ve been working as a QA engineer (junior tester, really) testing hardware integration at a music software company. Never thought those hours debugging MIDI and driver issues would become a job 
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I’m the head of design and marketing at a tech product company - keeps me very busy.
Exploring music is my home hobby after having a kid. My hobbies all used to include mountains and adventure, so needed to find something closer to home.
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I’m a father of two wonderful girls and I’m a diesel mechanic. The rare moments I get to myself are spent playing music or video games.
When I was younger I used to play a lot of guitar but I kind of plateaued I think. Maybe a year or two ago I picked up a Volca FM after learning a little bit about synthesis, and that really reinvigorated my love for making music.
Now I have a little more gear, post here a bit and love interacting with this community.
PS: This thread is super interesting. Lots of different experiences coming together.
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I’m a user experience designer, too! I transitioned into UX design after working in education research for a decade. I wanted to do something more creative and UX was a natural transition in how it integrates research and evidence-based thinking into the design process.
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Woah! Dont spill the soup, Chef!
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self employed audio editor- audiobooks, podcasts, occasional radio. the work is varied, sometimes fascinating, sometimes incredibly dull, depending on what comes through. its the closest thing to a dream job that ive ever had and i love it, despite the pitfalls of being self employed (especially over the last year). working completely by myself suits me down to the ground as im not a people person in the work environment, but it gets a bit isolated sometimes- having this forum ticking away in the corner of my screen is a valuable lifeline at times!
great thread btw, have often wondered what everyone lese here does
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Hehe no worries dude, would never spill a good soup 
Game Designer by day, musician by night…well, sometimes during the lunch too. Really dig my day job, but it is sometimes super frustrating that I can’t actually tell anyone what I am working on, so music provides a nice outlet for my creative energy.
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That’s awesome! It’s always cool to hear how UX people got into the field because so many different skills from different trades can be applied and there are so many ways to work in UX.
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MD of a company that does explosion safety…we try to stop oil rigs and stuff blowing up…I’m a chartered electrical engineer by trade…but I still struggled to patch my Eurorack sometimes 
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UX is basically my background - agreed, very interesting hearing how people got into the field. I just recently hired another designer and background of the field of applicants was very interesting.
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I see I responded to this thread like 5 years ago but things have somewhat changed a bit.
I actually moved from Melbourne to Adelaide here in Aus for something of a tree change about five years ago now. The rent is way cheaper - and I started studying at a local VFX firm called Rising Sun Pictures in the hopes of getting in the VFX industry with Houdini etc (there’s a scene here for that, weirdly).
Anyway I quickly realised it wasn’t for me, and I ended up back in the audio-visual tech thing at the local Convention Centre. That game can be pretty gruelling, back to back work with no days off for weeks, with overnight work thrown in the mix, a real washing machine of a time table.
But about 2 years ago after being promoted to senior technician and then supervisor, I got a new gig full time as an event designer.
This is now basically an office job, with regular, sane hours. Initially it was a lot to chew off, it has its bad moments. But it has enough around it to keep me happy. It rode me through the covid period which has now settled in Australia. And it’s also teaching me a lot more about event technology, which is handy, I suppose.
My team is small and tight knit, my boss is cool, there’s more hanging with ladies as they are my direct reports upstairs in planning, the money is the best I ever had (which isn’t much), and work wise it’s sort of mix between data entry, quotes, floorplan layout, and now we are doing 3d visualisations in a software called Vectorworks, which we trained up on during lockdown.
And this whole Covid thing has been insane. We’ve been dragged through the entire Zoom meetings and Webstream thing, where before this would have been an anomaly, it’s now the main deal. I recently pulled off planning a fully virtual online scientific conference with 11 sinaeltaneously web streams, running over 5 days, with all presenters and moderators coming in over Zoom from all over the world. It’s so much work! It’s been crazy for my team to level up on all this
In the end it’s not my dream job, but to be honest, I don’t know what is. I don’t think I live in the right country for my dream job. They all exist in Germany Sweden United States etc. my dream job is probably staying at home in my jimmy jams making tunes! 
This gig will teach me a lot if I stick it out for a while, though. It’s a point where I could get this type of gig in future. Who knows where it could lead. Its about as close as I can get as all the things around the job tick a lot of boxes , so I can’t complain. It helped me get a great new pad, and now it’s time to make a new studio there
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Yarp lol. Focus on security products for the most part.
Graphic/Interactive/Experience Designer. Spend my time learning type design(making fonts), learning programming, and started messing around with ML/AI recently.
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Sit on my butt watching TV all day long. Mostly old American football games on the NFL Network, some cable news. Looking forward to the Olympics - USA USA! Bag of potato chips, pizza, and Pepsi - happy.
Also work part-time at Walmart, and help scoop poop at the SPCA. And IT sysadmin.
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Interesting to hear someone else is on that path. I was doing that work as a second job for many years and was pretty close to quitting my day job to pursue editing / post work fulltime. I had enough clientele to be pretty close, but Life had other plans…
Even though it could get tedious like you said, I loved doing it!
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Yeah, it seems like it’s a super hot area to get into right now. Jobs were plentiful before COVID. I originally did one of those bootcamps, and that along with my research background got me some job offers. I quickly realized when I started my first UX job that I didn’t know shit. Lots of learning on the job and a very stressful year or so. I’m already on my second UX job and it’s going smoother, thankfully.
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The field of UX is extremely broad - I’m sure that every UX person on this thread does something very different each day, solving different problems using different techniques
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yeh it started out as a second job for me too while i had a ‘real’ day job. just about cobbled together enough clients to consider going at it properly, and an early midlife crisis (turning 30 ) pushed me into making the leap. that was 7/8 years ago and even tho it was risky so far its been ok. definitely wouldnt have been able to make that leap if it were more recently- the lack of any job security is terrifying at the best of times, and hustling for work in quiet periods can be soul destroying…!
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No man! I’ve been worse and still hoped the best for everyone else (plus myself)! It’s not a winner takes it all situation, quite the opposite - I learn in this thread from both the people who’re happy with their situation and those who’re looking for a change. Enjoy your happiness!
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