Know Your Worth / Career paths
Compare skills, employee pay, and freelance economics. Explore industries from optical and food to science, music, games, writing, and coaching.
673–720 of 1,030 careers
Employee references are annual US median wages for the cited BLS occupation, which may cover several career paths. Replacement targets add $15,000 for benefits and $20,000 for business costs, then divide by 1,200 billable hours a year. They show what you would need to charge, not what customers or platforms will pay. Everyday shift and gig roles show no inferred freelance rate: compare your actual worker receipts after costs and unpaid time. Annual figures are rounded to the nearest $1,000 and hourly figures to the nearest dollar. Figures are before personal taxes, with no percentage fees. Open a guide to see the source or adjust the assumptions in the calculator.
BLS · May 2025 · Training and development specialists
Teaches a structured approach to discussing observations, feelings, needs, and requests, using practice and reflection without claiming that a communication framework resolves every conflict.
View career → Nonviolent communication trainerBLS · May 2025 · Health Education Specialists
Helps clients turn general nutrition goals into practical routines through reflection, planning, and accountability within a clearly defined nonclinical coaching scope.
View career → Nutrition habit coachBLS · May 2025 · Food Scientists and Technologists
Evaluate nutrition research and datasets for product or public-information questions. Communicate study design, uncertainty, and population limits while keeping research synthesis separate from personalized dietary or medical advice.
View career → Nutrition Research AnalystBLS · May 2025 · Fitness Trainers and Instructors
Leads exercise participation for older adults with clear instruction, practical adaptations, and appropriate screening, emphasizing individual ability rather than assumptions based on age.
View career → Older adult fitness instructorBLS · May 2025 · Project management specialists
Coordinate cross-channel retail changes through clear dependencies, ownership, and acceptance criteria that reflect the connections between stores, online trading, stock, and customer service.
View career → Omnichannel project coordinatorBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Coordinate course launches, participant access, content updates, and support handoffs so a digital learning offer remains manageable after its first publication.
View career → Online course operations managerBLS · May 2025 · Network and Computer Systems Administrators
Operate game-service environments through monitoring, maintenance procedures, incident coordination, and transparent changes that protect ongoing player access.
View career → Online game operations specialistBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Organize product presentation, assortments, and trading updates so an online store reflects customer needs and current operational priorities without losing catalog consistency.
View career → Online merchandiserBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Builds authorized banking-data integrations with attention to consent, authentication, data consistency, and failure handling across different institutions and API contracts.
View career → Open banking engineerBLS · May 2025 · Database Architects
Organize the preparation, documentation, quality checks, and publication handoffs of approved public datasets so users can understand their fields, limits, and update history.
View career → Open data coordinatorBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Examines how responsibilities, processes, technology, and decisions fit together, helping leaders design a workable model for delivering their organization's intended services.
View career → Operating model consultantBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
An operations consultant improves how work moves through a business. They identify delays, repeated errors, and unclear ownership, then design practical changes that the people doing the work can maintain.
View career → Operations consultantBLS · May 2025 · Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Except Drafters, All Other
Establish and document the relationship between an optical instrument's readings and a suitable reference. Track environmental effects and uncertainty so results can be interpreted within defined measurement limits.
View career → Optical Calibration SpecialistBLS · May 2025 · Materials Scientists
Develop and evaluate thin-film coating specifications for optical surfaces. Connect transmission, reflection, durability, and process variation to a product's wavelength range and operating environment.
View career → Optical Coatings EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Design lens assemblies that balance image quality, package size, and manufacturing tolerances. Explain why a proposed optical layout meets the intended application.
View career → Optical Design EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Support installation and troubleshooting of optical instruments at customer sites. Coordinate readiness checks, training, and documented performance tests so technical handover has clearer evidence than a successful power-on.
View career → Optical Instrumentation Field EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Materials Scientists
Study materials whose optical properties matter to an instrument or product. Connect composition, structure, wavelength-dependent behavior, and environmental stability to evidence that can support a material selection decision.
View career → Optical Materials ScientistBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Develop measurement methods that reveal whether optical parts meet specifications. Account for alignment, calibration, repeatability, and uncertainty so inspection results support an appropriate acceptance decision.
View career → Optical Metrology EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Develop sensing concepts that convert changes in light into useful measurements. Connect optical geometry, detector behavior, environmental effects, and calibration to the physical quantity a customer needs.
View career → Optical Sensor EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Electrical Engineers
Help customers judge whether an optical component or instrument fits their application. Clarify specifications, arrange credible demonstrations, and document limits instead of substituting an impressive demonstration for verified customer suitability.
View career → Optical Technical Sales EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Create repeatable tests for optical instruments and assemblies. Design fixtures, measurement sequences, and reports that reveal meaningful failures while accounting for setup errors and changing laboratory conditions.
View career → Optical Test EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Translate a customer's measurement problem into a practical optics evaluation plan. Connect sample behavior, instrument capabilities, and integration constraints while documenting what a prototype demonstration does and does not establish.
View career → Optics Applications EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Industrial Engineers
Investigate how optical performance changes over use and environmental exposure. Connect failure evidence, sample limitations, and test conditions to practical improvements in component selection and product verification.
View career → Optics Reliability EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Mechanical Engineers
Design the mechanical structures that position and protect optical components. Account for alignment, thermal movement, assembly access, and tolerances so a working optical layout remains usable in practice.
View career → Optomechanical EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Optometrists
Provide licensed eye examinations and ongoing vision care, combining clinical judgment, patient communication, accurate records, and coordination with other qualified eye-care professionals.
View career → OptometristBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Investigates how structures, relationships, processes, and incentives influence work, then helps an organization test changes appropriate to its operating context and constraints.
View career → Organizational development consultantBLS · May 2025 · Fitness Trainers and Instructors
Introduces outdoor activities through qualified instruction, group leadership, and environment-specific planning, balancing learning objectives with participant needs and the operator's established safety procedures.
View career → Outdoor adventure instructorBLS · May 2025 · Graphic designers
Turn product and distribution requirements into readable packaging that communicates hierarchy, handles practical constraints, and supports a coherent shelf presence.
View career → Packaging designerBLS · May 2025 · Industrial Engineers
Develops packaging through material, product, handling, and distribution requirements, validating designs within appropriate engineering competence and product-specific review obligations.
View career → Packaging engineerBLS · May 2025 · Graphic designers
Adapt approved packaging designs across technical formats and product variants while maintaining copy consistency and reliable production files.
View career → Packaging production artistBLS · May 2025 · Market research analysts
A paid search specialist plans and improves advertising campaigns around audience intent and business goals. The role connects keywords, messages, landing pages, and measurement to help a team evaluate paid acquisition.
View career → Paid search specialistBLS · May 2025 · Paralegals and Legal Assistants
Supports legal practitioners through organized research, documents, and matter preparation within applicable supervision and professional boundaries rather than independently providing legal advice.
View career → ParalegalBLS · May 2025 · Web and digital interface designers
Designs patient-facing digital journeys so information, permissions, tasks, and support options are understandable, with qualified review of clinical content and sensitive interactions.
View career → Patient portal UX designerBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Tracks payment exceptions, reconciliation breaks, and operational handoffs so financial teams can investigate issues and maintain reliable transaction records.
View career → Payments operations analystBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Shapes payment experiences around merchant needs, transaction reliability, operational constraints, and clear ownership of exceptions across the payment lifecycle.
View career → Payments product managerBLS · May 2025 · Health Education Specialists
Uses relevant training and lived experience to support wellbeing participation and resource navigation, with clear supervision, consent, confidentiality, and boundaries around professional treatment.
View career → Peer wellness specialistBLS · May 2025 · Information Security Analysts
Evaluate security weaknesses through agreed testing and clear evidence. Penetration testers work within authorized boundaries, explain business impact, and help teams reproduce findings and verify that a proposed fix addresses the issue.
View career → Penetration TesterBLS · May 2025 · Fitness Trainers and Instructors
Helps clients build exercise routines through individual instruction, realistic goals, and ongoing feedback on participation, technique, and progress.
View career → Personal trainerBLS · May 2025 · Animal Caretakers
Pet care workers feed, exercise, supervise, and clean up after animals in boarding or day-care settings. This guide covers routine care rather than veterinary treatment.
View career → Pet care workerBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Supports pharmacy information workflows and system requirements under appropriate qualifications, ensuring pharmacists or other authorized professionals own medication-related content and decisions.
View career → Pharmacy informatics analystBLS · May 2025 · Photographers
A photographer creates images that serve a specific personal, editorial, or commercial purpose. The work combines visual judgment, technical control, and client direction with careful selection, editing, and delivery.
View career → PhotographerBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Design and verify light-guiding components integrated on a chip. Work with process constraints, layout rules, and simulation evidence to connect device behavior with a manufacturable circuit concept.
View career → Photonic Integrated Circuit EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Engineers, All Other
Improve fabrication or assembly processes used in photonic devices. Use process measurements and controlled trials to understand yield losses while respecting equipment constraints and material handling requirements.
View career → Photonics Process EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
Shape photonics products around customer measurement or integration problems. Translate application evidence into requirements, roadmap choices, and launch decisions that reflect manufacturing constraints as well as research possibilities.
View career → Photonics Product ManagerBLS · May 2025 · Physicists
Investigate how light interacts with devices and materials. Build reproducible experiments and separate a promising laboratory result from a claim about practical performance.
View career → Photonics Research ScientistBLS · May 2025 · Technical writers
Explain photonic instruments and processes so readers can install, operate, or integrate them appropriately. Coordinate terminology, diagrams, and qualified reviews for technical limits that must not disappear during simplification.
View career → Photonics Technical WriterBLS · May 2025 · Chemists
Investigate the physical principles behind chemical behavior. Use theory and measurements to understand properties, reactions, or interfaces while documenting conditions that limit how results transfer between systems.
View career → Physical ChemistBLS · May 2025 · Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
Help research laboratories maintain trustworthy records and measurement practices. Review method documentation, instrument status, and evidence gaps while distinguishing internal quality improvement from accredited certification.
View career → Physical Science Laboratory Quality Specialist