Non-tech professionals on HN?

I’m a manager at a smallish community bank. I ended up here because I was looking for a place to keep up with the world that wasn’t the google news main page, twitter, or facebook.

I got hooked on the condescending, presumptuous, all knowing commentary. I’m kidding!

I really got hooked on the many, many gems I’ve found (links & comments) about many of the various things I’m interested in: music, nutrition, leadership, psychology, even religion, etc, etc, etc. I’ve learned a lot here.

I’ve been lurking for a couple of years, but finally made an account the other day. This is my first comment!

I am not even a professional. I am an uneducated French house-husband in his late 30s. For some reason I have always been considered a "geek / nerd" by my surrounding but I did not really work in "tech" that much except for some web developpement gigs. One of my last job was forklift driver. I believe I am not part of the typical HN demographic. I like to create things that involve programming. I love and follow the demoscene since I'm sixteen. I guess reading HN came naturally.

edit: precision and apologies. I know my English is not that great and I am sorry for that. that is also why I don't comment that much. But I do read a lot.

California farmer, mostly pistachio and almonds. The farm has been in the family for four generations now and we hope to continue that.

I found HN while I worked at Google on self-driving cars from 2014-2018. At least two postings on HN have been direct material impact to me: the first about an autonomous tractor we might be experimenting with soon, and the second about water restrictions in CA that fortunately did not end up impacting us, but caused us to come up with some interesting water contingencies.

Mechanical enigneer in transport & logistics. I like keeping abreast of the tech industry and I'm a nerd at heart with an interest in a lot of things posted here. I get more out of it from interest's sake than from a career perspective. I think like several others here that had I pursued this hobby as my career, I'd enjoy it a lot less and probably wouldn't even post here.

That said, occasionally there's some nice cross-over content that gets me thinking, generally in the deeper soft-skills such as the contrast between the consequences of systems and process management in tech vs my industry. One particular example for me is the criticisms of perceived bureaucracy and red tape in tech (particularly in start-ups), and the idea that it is the scar tissue of former corporate mistakes. That example is interesting for me because the criticisms often levelled from the tech scene are frequently benefits in my industry - slowing down and forcing multiple checkpoints hinders iterative process, but it's really important when making a mistake results in a multi-fatality and the cost of rectification is going out and modifying thousands of assets rather than pushing a new code update.

I think there's value in general in taking off the blinkers and looking over the fence at other industries. It's a healthy way to ensure the groupthink isn't being too blinding.

Lawyer here. I specialise in tech deals and the burgeoning tech regulatory sphere. (Think AI regulation, cryptocurrency, etc.) HN is a great way to keep my finger on the pulse.

I try to contribute to legal threads where I can, but /some/ HN contributors' level of obtuseness towards the nuance of legal issues can be off-putting.

As can the insistence to treat every social and moral issue as newly discovered, merely because there isn't a /computer science/ paper written on it yet. (I am exaggerating for effect, and I say this with genuine affection for the CS-crowd, but I think that there's at least a thread of truth in my last sentence. It's human nature that we approach problems from our own perspective or specialism first).

Still, a fascinating place to hang out, and I have huge respect for the general level of contributions, and individual contributors, here. I hope that us non-techies patronising HN adds to the richness of the debate.

I’m an engineer at NASA working with nuclear space power systems. I ignore most of the more trite software / internet / money making bullshit. Some of that stuff is legit but most of it feels like “advances in advertising technology” or media delivery. I’m old enough to remember the earlier days of the internet and it’s sort difficult to admire the people that worked hard and made a lot of money turning it into what it is today.

Luckily, there are a lot of smart people here who are interested in many other things and that’s what I’m here to get exposure to.

After reading HN daily for years, I finally registered to answer this question. I'm a military officer. I spent the first half of my career flying helicopters and doing general management stuff, but now I work on IT (not software development, sadly) within the military because I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in CS. I still do some programming as a hobby. I guess I straddle both worlds, like others who've already responded, but I'm definitely not in the originally intended audience of Silicon Valley startup founders and employees. I used to read Slashdot and various subreddits to keep learning and stay current on computing, but I ultimately found that HN is the best place on the Internet for that. Now that I have an account, maybe I'll start adding my own insights to threads that touch on military matters.

Underground mining engineer, working in the Canadian far north. I've always been a computer geek, even did some internships as a developer, but I realized needed a career that would pull me out of screens.

Still a hobby programmer and love tech. The tech industry has a dynamism and pace that contrasts even modern mining sharply.

I'm not sure when I stumbled upon HN but I was hooked immediately. Also helps that HN is very data-light so I can load it reliably via our old satellite connection on-site.

I’m a cultural historian and professor. My early work was on the development of video synthesizers by artists, engineers, educators, and technologists—mainly for non-commercial and artistic purposes. I visited HN for a decade before creating an account. Now, I find thoughtful and engaging conversations on HN. It reminds me that while many of us do not work in the same profession/field, the inquisitive nature of the posts and comments speak to our common interests and curiosity. I also get to learn from amazing people who have played a part in pioneering their fields respectively.

Anglican priest here. (I would guess the only one?)

IIRC, I ended up here during one of my sporadic attempts to teach myself to code for fun. I stuck around for the diverse and interesting content plus the thoughtful and sane discussions. I don’t participate that much, but I always enjoy reading the comments on here.

I am a bassoon player in a professional ochestra. I have been programming since I was 7, and apart from building a few small programs for small companies run out of a garage and one place where I got paid for consulting in a small common lisp project (although I am more of a scheme user these days), very little of what I have written has left any traces online.

Anyway, now I program to relax. Recently I have been working on this: https://git.sr.ht/~bjoli/goof-loop/

Philosophy and theology student here, former military. I have a passion for history and dabble in Latin.

I'm here because I pay for my masters and academic hobbies in other fields with my tech day job.

I believe in the Renaissance model of trying to understand and succeed in many fields.

I manage at a famous Chicago pizzeria. When I was young I had aspirations of becoming a programmer or otherwise working in tech and kinda grew up reading different aggregators and eventually HN. Now that I know myself better I don’t think I would do well or be happy really sitting at a desk most days. I like working with my hands, entertaining guests, and working with and developing a team of staff from a variety of backgrounds and skill levels. These days I mostly just read for entertainment but when I’m occasionally burnt out I daydream about doing IT or UX.

Currently unemployed. I was studying python which somehow lead me to here. Normally I surf Reddit but I find hacker news to be less toxic in the comments.

There are a few experimental physicists on here. I work for Microsoft now, but I found out about HN from a grad school officemate, who found out about it from a YC grad who did a postdoc in our research facility. I credit HN with helping me have enough understanding of the tech industry to land a job as a data scientist at Microsoft, which set me up for joining the quantum computing team a few years later.

Helicopter pilot here, currently wildland firefighting flying for a US Forest Service contractor.

Found HN as a uni freshman in CS. Had a 5 year mini career as a dev in tech, but wanted more fulfilling(for me) work - hence the transition.

Back then, I was an HN reader for what I would call "career development" learning, trying to keep on the bleeding edge. Now I'm here for the tech-adjacent conversations and reading the more nuanced insider discussions on breaking tech news(eg: recent FB stories). Another reason for my keeping up with HN is occasionally a post will inspire a new side-project to improve either my personal or professional life outside of tech.

I am a physician turned drug developer and work in biotech now. I have also dabbled a bit in IT though and got hooked on HN many years ago. I keep coming back to HN for the thoughtful comments and nearly complete absence of malignant ones.

I’m a pediatrician. I studied electrical engineering and did software for about 6 years before the career change. I still enjoy programming. It’s a different experience that’s more focused on growing your trade inwardly, while my job now is interacting with people all day! There is so much low hanging fruit in medicine that technology can / should have already solved. I would love to see medicine delivered more efficiently and for doctors to have freedom to focus on patients and doing medicine, rather than wrestling with our digital tools.

I’ve mostly lurked on HN, but I know there are a number of others with the same passion here. I’d love to get to know you!

Scientist in materials & chemistry. HN offers a diversity of fascinating topics without much fluff. Sure, it's heavily focused on the tech industry and professionals, but there are always a handful of other topics that are really worth reading. Plus I occasionally enjoy peeking over the fence to see what's happening in the tech industry.

Psychologist here, working in logistics now. I discovered HN 9 years ago, when I was involved in educational projects for startups.

Got immediately hooked not only by selection of links but also informational (an entertainment) value of comments which quite often are more intresting than a linked article itself.

Clinical haematologist / cancer researcher here. I work mainly 80% clinical work and try to fit in research into the rest of the week and evenings. My PhD worked on bigger data than could be analysed in the regular biological sciences way (excel + stats software), so I learnt R. That led me down a rabbit hole of learning linux, bash, bit of Go, python etc.. I can't remember how I ended up here. I think maybe the instructor for the Go course mentioned it. I stayed because I find the science-based articles interesting and I like to draw comparisons across different disciplines.

The quality of the discourse is high here, so I'll stay as long as that's the case!

Voice actor here. I've been reading HN since '13. Mostly to stay hip to what's going on in tech as I find it interesting. More recently I've been fascinated by the AI developments in voice / TTS, voice modeling and deep fake video tech.

Artist here. I see art as a way of thinking that is often missing in tech. At the same time, the role of art is not just to create aesthetic experience but to explore and participate in what the world is becoming. Can't do that without tech.

HN is just such a friendly place, with interesting and interested people, and a mostly honest and level-headed discourse. It's fun to be here.

Hi!

Biochemist with a PhD, leading a group for bioprocess development and scale up. Been following hackernews for a few years now. Probably found it via digg or reddit, don't remember really. The things I like about NH is the minimalist UI and very high signal/noise ratio in the comments.

I have also played with the idea to switch professions for quite some time, but my programming skills include only basic python and microcontrollers. But in the end I always realise I'm very good at what I do and have a PhD in the field so it would not really make sense to switch and start over.

Researcher in optics and photonics, just hanging around HN because I enjoy both the diversity of the topics and also the way comments are moderated. I can't remember when I discovered HN, but I know I went from /. to digg to reddit them HN. I hope HN will last a bit longer then the others before jumping the shark...

Civil Engineer here. I found HN after coming across an article by a programmer who had found a way to crack a captcha to access something called "Silk Road" using a Ruby script. I found that fascinating and followed a trail that led here. I like the community. Maybe I picked the wrong profession!

Real Estate Developer. Software should eat my industry. I find a bit of what I read here to be quite interesting.

I'm a video editor and artist interested in information and consciousness. I think editors and programmers actually have a lot in common in terms of what they do (dicing and combining data in creative ways), although the editors I know definitely don't see themselves that way.

I'm trained in philosophy and social sciences, mostly economics and sociology. I work in management consulting, we do strategic communication and some public affairs.

We do have some tech mandates but my interest in technology is largely personal. My parents are both in tech and their very problem driven compsci dinner talk in the evening greatly influenced me throughout my younger years.

I feel that since tech grew into every corner of society its far less peculiar to have a tech interest than maybe even 15 years ago.

U.S. diplomat. Programming is a hobby and keeping up with the tech sector is relevant to my job.

Student in civil engineering. It's been several years now and still no end in sight. My decision on this profession wasn't very well thought out because I wasn't able to back then. Right now I'm in the position of a gambler who invested a lot and can't really jump of the train.

I want to learn coding, but haven't been able to start for quite some time now. But I have interests in tech stuff and that's why it's interesting to read HN nevertheless.

Anyways, every time I start talking about myself I feel like self pity is taking over and I hate that.

Professional driver, currently drive long haul but pre-COVID was hauling around people (who don’t like to be referred to as “freight”) and before that non-human freight. Started as a temporary job (just a couple years to save up some money) in ‘98.

Always been interested in tech stuff and around ‘08 or ’09 taught myself to program properly so I could contribute to Blender since I enjoyed using it but aren’t really that good at 3D art.

Kind of wish I’d signed up for an account at slashdot at the turn of the century for some ‘hacker cred’ but looking at my account over there my first post was in ‘05. Incidentally, that’s where I’d learned of this Linux thing since windows ME was such a POS I was super happy to find a replacement…thinking back that had to have been in ’01 or so.

Also remember messing around on the interwebs in my college days in the mid-90s but didn’t do too much techie stuff, mostly just whatever your common person did on the web in those days.

Now I just read HN to get my news fix when I get an off moment here and there…

Postdoc in Materials Science/Physics currently at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. I guess it's tech adjacent, but I did my PhD at Berkeley which exposed me a lot to tech and therefore this site.

Mid-thirties, CFO of a largish French/European (non tech related service, brick and mortar) service business.

Always been a geek, used to code, love to think in terms of systems / data / interfaces... kind of missed that natural "tech" path in my career, went to a top business school out of what you'd call laziness (achieving a top business school in France is much easier than achieving a top engineering school)... so reading HN in a way is a way of fulfilling my passion for tech and my curiosity for all those geeky areas from engineering to physics to maths to whatever you'll find on HN any given day.

I have to add, carrer-wise, that being able to have an educated opinion on IT matters when you're not the IT guy in the room is actually extremely valuable, and one good excuse to keep reading!

I'm a consulting hypnotist (hypnotherapist), albeit with a strong technical side (e.g., I've trained my employees to use desktop Linux for remote work).

I'm essentially in the business of thinking clearly about client problems and communicating that thinking as effectively as possible, which means that I gravitate toward communities that take pride in the same. Although this is a technically oriented forum, I find many of the discussions here to be intelligent and thought-provoking, especially when they have to do with philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics or business -- those topics that we all must be concerned with, whether we work in tech or not.

I’m an analytics guy in the insurance/reinsurance industry. Most people think of that description as falling under the umbrella of the actuarial profession But there are lots of us that can code, understand numbers, and help execute much of the same work. Just didn’t spend 5-10 years taking tests.

HN is a place I visit to understand some of the latest tech I should/should not use to get my job done. Also it’s an honest place that tells you clearly whether your comments/submissions are useful or not. I like that kind of feedback. Also I like this site because it allows me to gather and evaluate viewpoints I both don’t have or don’t agree with.

I’m a surgeon but enjoy dabbling in programming/computer science and engineering and found the conversation on HN a bit more insightful than most other websites.

I do inventory and paperwork at a large recreational marijuana grow site. I work with python as an amateur and found this place through python interests somehow.

I've been programming since I was 13 years old. Chose not to pursue a career in technology because I felt like I would never get to work on the really cool stuff like a programming language, a virtual machine, an operating system, a kernel... A future working on business systems and websites just didn't appeal to me. I wanted to work on the infrastructure that powers everything.

Ended up going to medical school. Now I'm in the process of specializing in occupational medicine.

I still wonder what might have happened. My friends always tell me I would have made it. Who knows.

I'm a former film/game/TV composer. Last year I developed a condition of the ear that stopped my career in its tracks.

Always had an interest in tech, so I'm currently in process of switching careers to programming. In the meantime, I'm continuing to work in tech support for other composers.

Dermatologist, Mohs surgeon and clinical academic. I do lead research related to AI though so there is some relevance!

Private equity, but quite tech-y in a personal capacity (selfhosting, coding etc).

Don't recall how I ended up on hn though

Mining engineer. Actual hard rock mining though.

Got sick of reddit

I'm a carpenter who's always been a programming enthusiast. I guess it's like programmers with a woodworking hobby.

Just started college, no work experience. I've been looking for blogs to read when a friend (in the tech field) recommended HN.

Tech industry articles still tend to provide insights, though I have no use from posts exclusively on programming. Both tech and non-tech posts/comments are quality - kinda obvious, but this is HN's killer feature.

I am lawyer and a writer (mostly unedited), a math fanboy --and sort a script-kiddie. English' not my native language. There's no other site in the entire net most interesting than that. True is that 80% of the posts I can't follow: there are too technical for me. But the rest that I can read, change, in no time, the way I seeing things and doing things. You guys are amazing, even for a total newbie uneducated reader. Like if you have a link in your front-page it's mostly the true for me.

I also enjoy reading about topics I can barely understand. But now in the office we are trying to use git for working together, not only our overleaf's local installing.

Tell me to lurk moar. I am considering myself the last of your brother. And even if I can't improve my tech knowledge, and, then, with the time my 80% becomes 90%... I'm very happy for this site to exists.

And I'm 45 years old.

I run a consulting firm that focuses on strategy, ops, and org for life science industry. I spent the first 10 years of my career in tech (worked at a few big names, ran a couple startups with nominal success). I still like technology for its applicability to business problems. Ive been on HN since 2007ish

I’m a dentist. That’s non-tech I think.

I like HN for the fairly diverse things they get posted. I don’t read a lot of the deep techy stuff because I don’t understand any of it. But the discussions are often pretty interesting and it’s a (in my head) better use of browsing time than Reddit.

Retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist with no recall of how I found HN

I run the education department of a large makerspace in southern California and also teach a 3D printing course and run a 3D print farm as a side hustle. I enjoy reading the comment sections for the thoughtful commentary. Hacker news is my go-to news aggregator.

Interesting thread! I am a tech professional now, but I started my career working in oil and gas, so I know a lot more about how that industry actually works than most.

One of the funny things about tech is that only a small percentage of tech workers are doing "pure" tech, where that's all you really need to know about. The great majority of the jobs involve developing a lot of knowledge about whatever line of business you're working in, so that you can implement the business rules and workflows correctly, and fix things that address the problems your users actually care about. I've done tech in several completely different businesses, and I always enjoyed learning how they work.

I play guitar in a traditional jazz band. Found HN while self-teaching computer science as a quarantine hobby. I love the random interesting links and substanitive conversation. A lot of the conversation in the comments gives me direction in studying.

Physician in internal medicine with a background in computer science, math, and genetics. Got hooked on HN in college after searching for a like-minded community sharing more relevant news to me than the vast majority of other websites.

It depends how you define tech. I work in the telecom sector, which is legacy tech, I always laugh when folks ask me about equity.

Freelance visual artist, filmmaker, photographer. IT is my hobby that save me quite a lot of money.

I found HN in March 2020 on Telegram, when I start use RSS because main agenda of news was unreliable and social networks became absolutely crazy.

I'm a cancer clinical research coordinator and browse HN daily! I like to keep up to date with technology and people building the future. The site has been a great discovery tool for some awesome blogs!

I'm a freelance performance and theatre artist. This means (in my case) that I stage/create performative works of my own, perform in other people's pieces and sometimes build special effects using electronics and programming.

I used to study physics before I got serious about theatre, and my dad is a programmer. I think he introduced me to HN at some point a few years ago, and today I am using it daily to indulge my curiosity, laziness and procrastination. (;

This is an awesome thread to read, thanks for posting the question!

I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, but like many others here, have been a "computer geek" since a very young age. We had dialup internet and a 486 running DOS at home in the early 90s when I was around 8 or so, which wasn't very common. I learned python by myself at around 14 /15, in part because I wanted it to do my boring, repetitive math homework for me. I started reading Slashdot around that time. I was also very interested in mechanical things, built a tabletop trebuchet, working on small engine machines (minibike, old snowmobile which I bought by working by working retail at min wage) and eventually chose mechanical engineering as a career path over CS, for no very specific reason (it's tough asking 18 year olds to make a career choice). I kept kept reading Slashdot and toying with computers and eventually migrated to HN with many others around the time of the redesign and acquisition.

Today I have a job I actually love as a mechanical research engineer, which is varied and lets me program and play with electronics from time to time. I still program in my free time, though it's getting scarce these days (as a father to a 2 year old). That works pretty well as a job/hobby combination as programming requires no space and is pretty much free, which isn't really the case of, say, machining robot parts (have access to a lathe and CNC mills at work).

I did try working as a developer for a year ("DevOps" for an accounting software company) but was pretty unhappy and quickly started looking to move back into ME. However, I'd be lying if I said reading about the astronomical total comp numbers that are casually thrown around HN didn't make me question my career choice sometimes.

My background is a combination of horticulture + molecular biology = plant breeding/genome engineering. I have other prior experiences as well and intend on switching my career once again. I've always been interested in tech and started programming in my younger teen years. My next step will probably be something cloud-related since I love learning about it and believe it's only going to grow exponentially.

Economist consulting government entities and NGOs on labour and knowledge markets and reforms. No ties to tech other than through hobbies and as a tool for doing my work.

I sometimes wonder if there should be more social science courses in tech studies, seeing that there's a lot of already open doors being barged through by some popular CS papers and discussions... But maybe that's unfair:)

Hmm...I can't remember how I got here. Currently in Federal government. Grew up building my own computers, lan parties, etc. Lots of friends ended up in the tech world/start up scene. Lots of overlap between federal gov and technology.

HN also reminds me a little of the old digg, and a bunch of other early 2000's online communities.

I probably got here through a PG essay or mention on a tech podcast.

I'm a Content Architect and sometimes content developer working with several dozen (hundred? I have lost track) over-engineered aerospace and mil-std specifications. Technical Publications software has been a garbage fire since I entered the workplace (at least), and I hope that, at the end of my career, I can look back and say I helped some.

I wouldn't call this high tech. Most of the time I'm working with very primitive IT environments, trying to introduce little bits of technology as strategically as I can. Other times I'm trying to bring in tools for dealing with other data formats. Half of the day is just training people on stuff you dev types might take for granted (i.e., regex).

HN keeps me abreast of the latest movements of the content software stack. It's what clued me in to Asciidoc a few years back. For whatever reason HN seems to have built an insanely good commenter culture. How they've avoided brigading with such an open system I have no idea.

I don't fit as a marketing person, but still find HN pretty and swung over here and really interesting during the reddit disporia of a few years ago. Found the Telegram bot for HN and that's something that's kept me coming back when I see some interesting stuff. I wish there was a HN for marketers, you have a really engaging community.

Tax attorney, was a general IT guy/systems administrator/software engineer in a previous life and I maintain an interest.

Geologist, these days mostly involved in team and operations management, but it’s helpful to have familiarity with a wide range of technologies from networks to cutting edge technology for analyzing formations (usually in extreme environments- a few km deep at high temps). Familiarity in tech is very helpful, but certainly not essential.

Physicist working on nuclear fusion. I do scientific programming. I'm also interested in understanding what makes the difference between good & bad leadership/management. I kept seeing interesting search results/links pop up on this weird orange website, so I finally started reading it on the regular.

Staffer at a labor union. I'm interested in tech and how we can use it to further labor organizing.

I do grant writing and research for nonprofits, public agencies, and some research-based businesses: http://seliger.com. The blog speaks to a part of the world many don't realize exists.

Student and hobbyist programmer. I actually found HN through the programmingcirclejerk sub on Reddit and got hooked. I like learning new things, and Reddit isn't the best place to do that, so I've started browsing HN more.

I am the founder/managing director of software company and ex-technologist.

HN is a perfect blend of business and tech for me. The comments sections are significantly less toxic the rest of the Internet.

Industrial engineer, working in emergency medical services in operations research to help optimize the service (i.e. figuring out where to let EMTs take their breaks in a metropolitan area to increase coverage of potential critical calls, short term demand prediction, employee scheduling and planning etc..). Been lurking on HN for a long time, and stumbled on it by chance and got hooked instantly. Like many others said, its a great way to stay on top of tech related issues/topics.

I work predominantly in Event Production - I love to read anything tech related and occasionally some of the links posted here contribute to more creative solutions in my day job.

Jack of all trades here. I lurk for tech news, snarky comments about corporate drama, niche blog links, interesting tools. I wish there was a HN for most of my passions.

Was on HN as a physics and neuroscience student for a long time, now at google though, probably in large parts due to the time I spend hanging out on HN.

Engineer by education, now analyst.

I think HN is a great and simple looking resource for keeping up to date on various news in tech and business world.

Admittedly, I have little interest in some of the topics that pop up - that goes into the politics of open-source software, controversies surrounding some of the languages and tools, etc. But there's so much different stuff here, so it's cool.

I'm a college prof in communication. I've been a techy for a long time. Started with slashdot and eventually moved here.

It's just a quadrant in a model I use. There is how technical a role is on one axis and how much the company or organization you work for is considered to be in tech on the other axis.

If there are a lot of data points in the three quadrants that have something tech about them, there are going to be some in the fourth quadrant as well.

I'm an accountant, currently head of finance for an ecommerce business.

About 10 years ago learnt Python as a bit of fun. I have now developed a niche of IT/Accounting. New accounting systems need IT assistance, so being conversant in IT stuff helps the implementations go smoothly and I can write some of the integrations.

I'm a social worker by training and a public policy wonk/advocate/lobbyist turned quilter for work. I can't recall how I found this most wonderful place but I love it! I get to read things here I wouldn't otherwise find and the comments add, well, are the real value!

I'm a physical science researcher on coastal processes, with particular interests in using ML to solve inversion and flow problems that cannot be sufficiently modeled with linear algorithms.

I honestly can't remember how I found hackernews.

I work in global logistics and supply chain. HK news helps me to think in the future/now.

I also enjoy checking it on the weekends. The community is helpful. I love that the site is simple and doesn't add new unwanted features.

Not sure if Digital Marketing is considered tech or not, but anyway, here I am.

Chemist here. I have been working with Python for some 10 years in data related applications. Found HN through python/programming topics and like the variety of topics that are coming up here frequently.

I’m an actuary. The actuarial profession is increasingly coming to realise that data science will be an important skill for actuaries in future and HN is a great source for related links and discussion.

I am in Tech and following HN since 2008.

Seen very talented people on HN and quality of comments is really good.

I like this thread and good to see people from different industries and verticals. Going to bookmark this URL :-)

Anesthesiologist. Although I have also worked as a software engineer.

Lawyer and military officer. I self-studied programming in high school and did a minor in CS in college. Always enjoyed it as a hobby. Found HN because Metafilter was trashing on it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm a stem cell biologist. I still do a little coding though so that's why I found this place

Before I quit my job as a lawyer I was on here at least once a week keeping in touch with the industry.

I sometimes feel there's more non-tech + manager types here than there are tech types.

Academics visit too.

COO, law firm, heavy on the legaltech.

Everything is tech. And tech is nothing. For instance Google is an ad business. The web, aside from ads, is publishing. I propose we drop the construct altogether. It had its place back when personal computers were novel, but the contemporary historian writes code. Unless you mean software engineering, but much of that is now plumbing and project management.