late to the game here, but I'm waiting for something to finish running on the compute farm @ work and have a few minutes.
I'm a computer hardware engineer. (BS in Electrical/Computer Engineering). This is a job that kind of just 'fit' me.... I have had a computer at the ends of my fingers since I was 8 years old (I'm 31 now). I had to beg for two straight years to get my parents to buy that thing, too! Of course, they now consider it one of the best investments they ever made in terms of preparing their children for the future.
I'm by far the 'black sheep' of my family. Not because I do things that they do not approve of, but because I am educated and have moved away from the small town of 900ish people where I was born. Most everybody else in my family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, neices/nephews) lives within 30 miles of each other in rural Ohio.
I currently work for
http://www.nvidia.com, designing computer graphics hardware. I recently finished my work on Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, but (ironically) I don't play video games very much... maybe a few hours a YEAR.
I view my job as a means to an end. The work itself is fairly easy for me, but the schedules that I have to adhere to make for some FANTASTIC loads of stress.
I like my job... I don't LOVE it, but I like it, and it certainly pays the bills. I find my joy in my family and my hobbies, and if I can stick to my plan, I hope to retire a few years early and just go fishing for a decade or so.
-walker