Ask HN: Non-programming, 'thinking' jobs?

These jobs exist. Corporate executives are obvious ones. Finance, particularly hedge funds and venture capital. Management consulting. Politicians. Tenured professors. Creative solitary professions like writers, comedians, and composers.<p>The problem is that almost everyone would rather think than do, so you've got a massive supply &#38; demand imbalance. Everybody wants to be the one deciding what should be done; very few people want to be the ones actually doing it.<p>In practice, most professions deal with this by instituting barriers to entry. In rigid hierarchical organizations like the corporate world, this is done through a "pay your dues" culture. The people who become corporate executives get there through performing well at grunt work on an individual contributor level - well enough to attract the attention of an outgoing senior executive. The most likely path to becoming a venture capitalist is to found a successful startup yourself. Anyone can start a hedge fund, but convincing people to give you money usually requires a solid track record as an analyst or trader at an established firm. Associates at management consulting firms do things like count products on store shelves and make PowerPoint presentations before they get to call the strategy shots themselves.<p>In more fluid professions like novelists, the barrier to entry is simply that you have to be so good that they can't ignore you. There are millions of aspiring writers that want to get published; only a few thousand manage to do so, and only a few dozen become bestsellers. If you want to be one of them, you need to be willing to practice and revise enough that your work is better than all the other folks.

CIA and the pentagon love thinkers and people with very analytical minds. The pentagon's job is to dream up the future of the world and war and prepare for it.<p>So as an analyst or grand strategist you would be tasked with studying how such and such technology will change global politcal and economic rule sets, etc and what america needs to do to take advantage of it or prepare for it. You can also be a person that researches the latest and greatest technology.<p>These military agencies were the people who developed the initial need for technological innovations like the internet and the database.<p>Also, you would go out talk to all these opinion leaders and participate in various think tanks with super smart people and create research that can influence the entire history of the world if compelling enough.<p>It is a lot of fun if you really want to contribute to the world and make a difference.

Start your own business.<p>Every day I have to do a lot of intense thinking... Every week, long term strategy and planning. Pretty much every business email that I write or phone call that I make requires a lot of thinking and analyzing. Especially since there's always an understand that if I fuck up, it's usually directly money out of my pocket.<p>It's not for everybody, but if you're looking for a job that makes you think, that's the one.

Product management. You must think a lot, programming experience is a huge plus, but this kind of work does not tie you to a computer - you should be out more and talk to prospects/customers.

Art. Probably not a job, but for a very nice hobby, try it out. Draw or paint something. Find an old camera (film-based) and take some pictures. Then develop the pictures yourself in a darkroom.<p>Sounds like a a bunch of simple tasks, right? Not really. As an example, <i>some</i> things that go into a drawing:<p>What kind of paper do you want to draw on? Are you going to make your own paper or buy some premade? What materials do you want the paper to be made of? What are you going to draw with? Pencils? If so, what classification? Colors? Ink the drawing in afterwards? What inks are you going to use, if so? How are you going to put the ink on the page? Not to mention "what are you going to draw?"<p>And thats scratching the surface. And there's just as much to consider for every other type of art.

1. Get a PhD.<p>2. Become a professor/researcher.<p>3. Grad students program for you.

I didn't read the previous thread as against programming per se- he mentions working in a cafe, which is a pretty good example of a job that requires rote repetitive tasks and very little thinking...<p>In my opinion the wonderful thing about programming is that it is the job with the lowest barrier of entry, to which your thinking, your thoughts, have the most direct and lasting effect on your employer's business.<p>As it's been pointed out on this thread already, the jobs in which you have the most effect and the most amount of thinking have very high barriers to entry, i.e., the corporate executive, or aren't well paid, e.g. the artist or writer, or don't have any real effect in the world, e.g., the romance language professor (humanities academic)... that is to say, there are trade-offs.<p>In general the thing that bothers me the most about non-programming thinking jobs, being a professor, thinking about policy, business strategy, or whatever seems to be the way you qualify or train yourself for the job- most of the time it means thinking or doing things that don't relate to your interest- business school, law school, MFA, whatever- but what do you do to become a better programmer? Program.

Become a blogger? ;-) Of course, it's only a "job" if you become a pretty high-profile blogger.<p>The "doesn't tie me to a computer" part leaves me unclear whether you want a job that's still thinking <i>about computers</i> but just isn't actually on them all the time, or whether you want a change of careers to a thinking-centric occupation that may not involve computers at all.<p>If the latter, there's all the traditional areas like philosophy, but they tend to be hard to find jobs in. Law has thinking-centric jobs, especially if you're a researcher for a larger firm that has someone else doing the in-courtroom advocacy, or a clerk for a judge, or a judge yourself, or a legal analyst at a think-tank or in academia. But you'd need to get a JD.<p>Long-form analytical journalism is also thinking-centric, but it's hard to make a living at (there are a handful of coveted jobs doing it full-time, and then a larger number of freelancers writing such pieces and trying to shop them around).

Look at your University.<p>I was involved in Grid Computing research, which didn't involve any development, but meant I had to go around to different Universities and private companies, and help them understand the benefits of getting into Grid Computing. It was mainly dealing with Management and Administrators, getting them to understand the benefits of using all those spare computing cycles, they have on their desks and in their computing labs.<p>It was a great job, and I got to meet amazing people and see lots of different places. This way you get to use your knowledge of computers, but aren't stuck at your desk programming away.

I would think that any kind of analytics might fit your description. The problem is that you might end up tied to Excel.<p>Another one might be some sort of civil engineering or any job where you need to physically build something.<p>Also, any job that you have can require thinking if you want it to. Learn about the job and then think about you can do it better, faster, or cheaper.

Go be an analyst or a researcher. There are national labs and other research places all over the U.S. and places like Battelle, Noblis, Mitre etc. are always looking for good people.<p>There are a surprising number of people in both roles. Lots of reading, critical thinking and writing. If you can operate a computer beyond that of a six year old you can go places.

Medicine. Health policy. Policy, in general. All allow you to do what you ask (to greater or lesser degrees). Of course, there is a lot of training required to get into the 'thinking' jobs in medicine.

Not exactly a job per se, but just go and spent your time in vegas. It took serious thinking to beat the house in roulette, poker, blackjack, or baccarat.

Research mathematician - since math is pure thought.