Id want to do something with programing and NASA. My ultimate dream would be for it to be in mission control. (Hey Dave can you hook me up?) But i wanted to see what everyone else would like to see them selves doing in the future.
My present job is pretty close to ideal. We make Video Eyewear, and Ive always been interested in 3D (stereoscopic images), and wearable computers.
I cant believe I get paid to design this stuff. I spend a lot of my free time watching movies with our eyewear. Im presently looking into putting together a wearable computer, with the new version of our V920 that is just about to hit the market. (the new system has no controller box or batteries - it plugs directly into a VGA port).
Eventually, I will be KenWittlief of Borg :^)
( you can see the stuff I work on at www.icuiti.com )
the only way my present job would be better would be if they increased my salary, by ohhhh… 4X, or if the company goes public because we are all part owners.
[Warning: long, rambling answer to a short question]
I had my dream technology job - it was my first “career” job, right out of college. But first, I had to turn down a job offer, from the same company, which everyone though I was crazy to refuse.
That job offered great pay and benefits, “lifelong employment” (this was pre-Reaganomics days) and good work in my field, designing industrial control systems. But it didn’t offer a chance to innovate or to do analog electronics (my real interest at the time), so I said “thanks, but no thanks” to the HR rep.
I got lucky - the HR rep asked me what I was looking for, and after I told him, he said he’d get back to me. He did, the next day, and the next thing I knew, I was visiting a rambling research & development lab at Dupont in Wilmington, DE, where, as it turned out, I was to spend the next fifteen years.
This was the place where they turned basic research into functional prototypes and pilot production systems. I got to design circuits for analytical instruments, embedded controls for patient-care devices, machine controls for a world-class robotic assembly line (so-described by an IBM manufacturing automation manager) and laboratory automation systems for environmental analysis and DNA extraction. Even got to turn a huge bridge crane into a radio and microwave linked “robot” for a nuclear waste processing technology demonstration.
It was a great job - learning new things every day and a completely new project challenge every year or so. But, like most good things, it didn’t last forever. When globalization and diversification allowed Wall Street to take control from the engineers, more emphasis was placed on profits than growth, new products and technology. When my group went from 140 to 14, I decided it was time to move on. Which I did, to a pharmaceutical start-up, where I still am eleven years later.
I moved away from Wilmington and lost touch with most of my Dupont friends, but, ironically, I ran into some of my former co-workers again when I got involved in FIRST. They make up much of the leadership of MOE (365) and include two regional Woodie Flowers winners. They were great people to work with back then and are still great people to “work” with now. Maybe I should have stuck around…
Im currently going to school still in high school mind you for network administration, for in wich i have a mous in word certififcation and im also A+ certified working on my Net+ having these gives me a three way turn once i get into collage, Microsoft , Cisco and Computer forenseics + Ethical hacking, but by the time im out of hs, i should have microsoft and ciso done…
So, with all that said, I think im gonna be a Ethical Hacker…or so at least I “dream” too =]
Wow, you are really lucky to get your certs. I wasted a year in A+ and 3 quarters in Cisco in high school learning mostly a bunch of nothing. I wanted to get certified in each but I didn’t learn nearly enough to even attempt the tests. I think it was the first time they had the classes offered so they didn’t really have the program running very smoothly yet. Both instructors were really stuck in the past, and the Cisco one got serverily ill and we had a substitute for like 2 months. It got really bad with grades and stuff because the substitue gave the assignments but the teacher graded them but he was never there. I got an assignment back that marked me wrong because I spoke of gigabit ethernet and the teacher said there was no such thing. Meanwhile, the rest of the class is wrongfully brainwashed into thinking that BNC connectors, coax cable, and token ring technology is the current standard in networking and made to memorize the OSI layers without even knowing what a router is much less how to configure one. I finally dropped it even when I had a high A grade in the class (that in itself took quite a fight, they’ll drop an F student no problem but they won’t let an A student drop 
) because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Learning about technology that hasn’t been used in years and not learning anything remotely applicable to real world and present day networking.
I hear it is better now though with some different instructors.
I’ve always wanted to work in some sort of engineering think tank. A “throw me a problem and I’ll find a way to solve it” kind of thing. Working at a normal company is too specific. As far as I know, there aren’t any companies that do “engineering” rather than electronics, areospace, automotive… I want to be designing a rocket one year and designing the next Segway the next year.
It’s not very practical, but I think it would be fun.
I think my job right now is pretty close to ideal. I’m working for RIT. I’m getting my masters in Mechanical Engineering / New Product Development and teaching students CAD (ProE specifically). I get to play with new new toys, and stay in a college atmosphere. Plus my boss is involved in FIRST and understands when I need to travel for that. I love being back in college.
If regarding to mine, yes, seriously.
I could see myself as some kind of engineer (probably mechanical…maybe materials or biomed or aerospace–but probably mechanical) that would get to design things as well as produce/fabricate them, or at least have time in the shop every once in a while. I love Inventor and working in the shop is just a blast. I’d also like to be surrounded by a lot of intelligent, motivated people to bounce ideas off of and we’d come up with creative solutions to problems that are thrown at us. hmmmmmmm…a sigh of pleasure It’s just idyllic. Mostly, my perfect job needs to be CHALLENGING.
~Anna
so i think i’ve found my “dream” tech job…i mean for still being in school and all working at a desk and working for an amazing company really is a dream…so i shall see where it takes me…
Sooooooooo then you job is a secret? or are you going to tell us what it is?!
I’m still a high schooler, mind you, but I think being an electrical engineer and forming a startup would be really fun… I could actually do something with my ideas. Of course, since this is my imagination, none of my ideas would ever go wrong or be stupid, and the company would grow huge and I would make billions of dollars.
I’m allowed to dream, right? :rolleyes:
“There is no try” - Yoda
I strongly recommend you start reading biography’s, of people who have started huge companies from nothing.
I think you will be surprised at how much they failed before they succeeded, and how often their ideas were rejected by the people who ‘knew better’.
Ken Olsen, founder of DEC
Edison
Franklin
George Eastman, founder of Kodak
and so many more than I can list here
try to get into the habit of going to the library once a week, to the biography section, and take one home. If parts of it are not interesting then skim through it till you hit the good stuff
your self confidence with be greatly improved.
Dream tech job? I’m doing it!
High school technology and engineering teacher in an engineering charter school. The school is great! The students are great! The administration is great! The facilities and equipment are nearly great! My colleagues in the department are great!
I get paid to play all day and to teach kids how to make what might seem like work to others be like fun to them! And every day I get to learn something new, too!
Who could ask for anything more?
Yee Haa!
Sean
Personally, World Dictator, or if I can’t get that… Maybe the evil genious who designs the floating chairs and stuff for the evil dictators… ever wondered who actually maintains and builds those things in the comic books?
only the world? what about the rest of the universe?
whats the point of having a benevolent dictator here on earth, while anarchy reigns throughout the rest of the cosmos?
Product management (or product marketing management, depending on the company) within technology. I know it will take a very long time (and another degree) for me to get there, but that’s expected.
If not, then something to deal with technology and the demographic shift: I find the Boomers and the Millenials shifting after decades into uncharted territory in terms of expenditure habits fascinating. Boomers are much more retirement-focused, and the Millenials are gearing up to be financially independent for the first time. But, I’m sure an answer like that was not what anyone had in mind 
I think that job is overrated. The paperwork alone would be a killer.