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neex
neex

Posted on

How do you explain what you do?

Hi dev.to community! I am tired of saying:

  • I do things with computers
  • I create documents with code
  • I fix bugs for XYZ department

BORING!!!

I was wondering if people have more creative ways to describe what they do, especially if you do something else than websites or web apps. These two are easy to explain to anyone.

Top comments (5)

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quinncuatro profile image
Henry Quinn

DevOps Engineer - We keep the servers running and make sure that the pipeline of idea -> developer -> code -> testing -> production has as few kinks in it as possible. We're the final safety check to make sure bad code doesn't make it into our live environments. That and we try to automate anything we need to do more than once.

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neex profile image
neex

Oh, that is way more technical than the audience I had in mind.
Like ...what is a server....kind of people.
Though I love the description for myself. I always wonder :)

It reminded me of when I was explaining to my dad how e-mail works (~1999).
After an extreme abstraction with pipes, boxes, and letters flying through things....he asked if the e-mail is on the computer already .... we have not connected to the internet yet (the dial-up days) and at this point, I decided to lie to my dad, for the greater good :)

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quinncuatro profile image
Henry Quinn

Like ...what is a server....kind of people.

I like to think I don't know any of these kind of people. :)

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georgecoldham profile image
George

Consultant here:

People tend to know what consultants are, they may not know the specifics of working in software etc, but they get the idea that I show up and build/fix stuff. Most of the people I am surrounded by who aren't technical just dont care past knowing what I kinda do.

If people were to ask now, I would say that im working on refactoring a core service for that gets 6m+ unique visits a month.

Sounds impressive enough, and its too technical for most people to care.

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neex profile image
neex

Ohhh, numbers! Yes, I can see how people would be satisfied with that answer :)