
Ask HN: Outdoor jobs for geeks? - Tichy
Are there any outdoor jobs that cater to the geek mind? The only thing I could think of is maybe naturalist (running around collecting and cataloging biological entities)?<p>It seems difficult to code while walking outside. Perhaps one could shift ones career in such a way that at least it involves long talks full of philosophical discussions (thinking for example about Ray Kurzweil).
======
wyclif
Land surveying. Includes knowledge of civil engineering, trigonometry,
cartography, hydrography, geology, law (boundary), and forestry.

<http://www.surveyingcareer.com/>

P.S. We need your help!

------
jasonkester
Computer Programmer.

Look, there aren't that many careers that will pay you $100+/hr on a short-
term contract. Take one of those for six months, then go hike the Pacific
Crest Trail. Then ride your bike to Florida.

That's a full year plan, half of which is spent outdoors, at the end of which
you'll still be about $50k ahead of where you would have been if you'd taken a
job planting trees for the forest service.

We really do have it better than just about everybody else. Do yourself a
favor and take advantage of it!

------
J_McQuade
I've long been a fan of going out into the woods with minimal tools (decent
belt knife, axe, tarp, blanket, billy can and a box of matches) - you'd be
surprised at the hack value you can find out there. Finding the most elegant
way to turn a couple of bits of tree into a chair can be far more rewarding
than a few hours spent twiddling your .emacs file, I can tell you!

Sadly, it's not immediately apparent how to turn any of this into a paying
'career' - unless your name's Ray Mears, of course, or you're prepared to do
it full-time and become a hermit (tempting, sometimes, I know...).

One of my ideal visions for an outdoors-ish job would be making and installing
energy producing wind-turbines from scrap, which is something I've been
interested in for a good while now. You'd likely never get rich doing it but
there's an increasing market for off-grid energy that may soon be enough to
support a person.

------
krupap
I was a Cave Specialist/Physical Science Tech for the National Park Service
for several years. I built GIS models, led cave surveys, mapped surface
hydrology, and hiked up high ridges at night with night vision gear and a
computer to ID bat echolocation calls. I could spend a day skiing to a
backcountry air resource station to measure ambient air quality or stay in the
office and draft a map. It was a perfect mix of outdoors and geek.

You can find jobs like that at <http://www.usajobs.gov/>.

------
pragmatic
I've found that hacking on my house provides a lot of needed physical
labor/activity.

I do things like improve the lighting in my garage so I can work on various
projects out there. I'm also thinking about taking up gardening.

I too have really felt the urge to get up and do real physical stuff lately. I
wonder if it's part of the disillusionment of web 2.0. So much bad news about
the economy,etc that I don't feel that working on the "next big website" is
really going to pay off.

------
mtb72
Field engineer for a cellphone/mobile broadband company. You'll need to travel
around to mast sites and customer sites to do QA, troubleshooting, test signal
strength and do basic IP networking stuff.

You need a head for heights.

~~~
andyking
<http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/winterhill/winter-hill10.php>

This isn't far from where I live - I'd quite like to get into the engineering
and particularly transmission side of radio (currently in programming although
I have an amateur radio licence) but I don't fancy working 1,000 feet above
the ground in a little cage... (look at the pics, they are stunning!)

------
MikeElkins
Underwater robots. <http://www.bluefinrobotics.com>

Have to love tech and boats.

~~~
davidw
Sea/water stuff... that's a good point. There's probably a fair amount of
variety there - marine biology, oil surveying, stuff like that. I guess it's
not so attractive for those of us who love the hills and forests, but it's not
a bad idea at all.

------
davidw
Interesting question. I love being outdoors, and find that it's necessary to
get a fair amount of exercise to be physically and mentally healthy. Perhaps
it's best not to combine that with work, though...

My grandfather worked as a forest ranger, and he seemed happy enough, although
I'm not sure it was much of a geeky occupation (although he did know the
common and latin names of a large variety of flora and fauna). My other
grandfather, OTOH, worked on the instrumentation of early jet planes.
Definitely geeky:-)

~~~
Tichy
At least if your job depends on being physically fit, it seems rather risky.
Could be that one would be more likely to keep working even if slightly ill,
putting long term health at risk. Also, of course there would be a higher risk
in general to be incapable of continuing to work due to health reasons (as
more parts of the body would be involved in the work).

------
robg
I think farmers are the original hackers.

~~~
jyothi
before that fire and then wheel - all hacked.

~~~
robg
Farmers are forced to continually find new hacks. The labor is so intensive
that every little innovation adds up.

~~~
arfrank
That reminds me of a cheese farm I worked on in France. The farmer had slowly
hacked together his cheese making equipment from an assortment of other food
processing machinery. It ended up saving him something like 10k euro over a
commercially produced device.

My favorite hack of his was out of necessity. He started getting shoulder
problems from stirring milk for hours every day, so he found an old motor and
attached it to the top of his vessel with a large paddle and voila no more
shoulder problems.

~~~
tjic
The fact that this is considered a "clever hack" as opposed to "duh, totally
obvious" befuddles me.

Who in hell would actually spend hours stirring milk for hours a day?

Saying that this is a clever hack is like saying "I know a guy who heats his
water for a shower using a hot water heater, instead of jumping into cold
water and thrashing his arms around for four hours - what a genius!"

------
helium
Travel writer. Lots of hackers are also good writers. It can involve a lot of
research into the history and culture of different places.

OK, maybe I'm just using my dream job :)

------
vorador
You could get involved in GeekCorps : <http://www.geekcorps.org/>

~~~
dylanmcd
The "Get Involed" link brings up a lightbox but doesn't load anything. Is this
organization still active, and have you been involved in it?

~~~
vorador
I don't know whether geekcorps is still active, however, you should be more
lucky with the Lion's Club International, which organizes similar projects :
<http://www.lionsclubs.org/>

------
KirinDave
Photography is a good geeky job that involves a lot of outside work.
Photography is actually a very technical art these days, which also is
strongly related to the artistic expression of the photographer.

I have recently taken up photography as a technical but low-stress pastime. It
appeals to my programmer-brain and my under-utilized artistic appeal at the
same time. It is also a great excuse to go to interesting place. As a bonus,
part of learning photography is learning interesting things about cognition,
vision and light. All cool stuff.

Photography listens to "intent" and "execution" nearly as much as programming,
which makes it very appealing to me. It's remarkable to me how two very
similar pictures at identical venues can convey very different feelings, based
off intent and execution.

------
gregwebs
I am going to try to program while outside.

~~~
Daemmerung
I do a little of this, using a Dell D630 ATG (reasonable review:
<http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_dell_ATG630.html>) to supply screen
visibility in full sunlight.

Programming while out of doors may not be as satisfying as you might think.
One is still very sedentary for very long periods: hot weather feels hotter,
cold weather much colder, and buzzing insects more annoying. You may miss
having a whiteboard or your printed-matter library handy. Also, outdoor
furniture typically makes a terrible substitute for proper office furniture.

On the plus side, eye strain is less of a problem given the built-in eye
relief of long focus outdoor viewing. And trees and birds make very pleasant
office companions who will always respect your privacy.

Ultimately, I find the out of doors better for reading (email, tech papers,
the occasional HN link) or reviewing code than actually programming.

~~~
gregwebs
That is more than a reasonable review- they had a conference call with Dell
about the screen!

Thanks for the thoughts. Ideally I would find a tablet with a great outdoor
screen. This makes sense if reading is the preferred outdoor activity.

------
mannicken
Do you mean jobs that don't involve computers and are outside? Many geeky jobs
will probably involve some sort of writing utensils, how is it different from
computer?

I work as a software development freelancer and often work outside with a
laptop or just pencil and piece of paper.

~~~
Tichy
I don't have anything against computers, but it seems using them to code
usually involves being sedentary. Sometimes I feel kind of imprisoned and
think I should be moving about more.

Maybe it is only about balance, so a job that involves lot's of field work (eg
for data collection) and some "home" work (data processing) might be good.

------
wglb
Here is one kind of outdoor geek activity:
<http://mcsquaredholdings.com/Pictures.htm>

------
krschultz
Construction management

------
berntb
A data point: An old friend burned out after a decade of being a consultant
with a long commute. Now he has worked a few summers as a gardener.

He is in shape, tanned and happy, so I have given up trying to make him go
back to computers. ("Join the dark side... we can drink coffee throughout the
day!")

Personally, after doing a commute like his for just half a year, I took the
first job I could find, moved 800 km and happily bicycle to work.

Well, this summer I'd prefer gardening even if it rains; I'll have to do Java
the coming months.

~~~
Tichy
Come to think of it, that is kind of what the hero in Office Space did -
except he chose construction work instead of gardening.

Still, gardening or construction seems too limited to me. I want to change the
world (not only my backyard, although technically it is a part of the world).

~~~
berntb
How about THIS, then? I've promised myself that if I ever get rich enough,
I'll live for years on diving boats. Between dives to the coral reefs, I'd
write open source.

(My dream also includes hiring a cook from somewhere with really spicy food.)

Maybe you could get a telecommute job and do that, without too high a cost.
(Boats aren't cheap, but if you stay at coral reefs in Asia, it might be OK.)

~~~
JabavuAdams
In the meantime, you could try IT on a cruise ship.

~~~
berntb
We were discussing living outdoors -- and still get intellectual stimulus.
(Preferably without people shooting at you, I assume.)

I don't know the subject, but a cruise ship seems like a more expensive
variant of eating all meals at restaurants and going on a weekend trip every
week? :-)

~~~
Xichekolas
If you work for the cruise line, however, you get to live and eat on the boat
for free.

Salaries are kind of low, but that is only because they know the perks
(room/board/travel) make up for it.

------
TriinT
Astronaut!! Does extra-vehicular activity count as outdoors activity? ;-)

