The topic of dream jobs is something that seems to come up every so often, either having a pint or recently, playing golf with a mate.

We were chatting about this and throwing various company names about, and it hit me that I've never taken the time to really document or think through this concept fully - so that's what this post is for.

Defining "dream jobs"

I'm talking about companies that I look up to and would love to work with. This may be because of the potential impact I think they can have or just products I think are super cool.

There are a few industries that I think are important, impactful, or that would be really fun to work in. I've added each of those 'industries' along with who I look up to most just now.

What about current and past roles? 😦

I'm grateful for where I've worked and where I currently work and this is just a thought process. I get to work with amazing people and have a real impact, I don't plan on changing anything anytime soon.

When I worked at Booking.com it was amazing to know that things I've designed helped millions of people travel and experience the world. That could be someone who'd saved their whole life for a family vacation or someone who just needs a place to sleep to get to a funeral.

Working at Deliveroo - the impact is even clearer right now as we go through covid, people are self-isolating or not able to go out, and Deliveroo is able to help them eat their favourite foods or get essentials from local supermarkets. On the other side, restaurants are struggling to stay open and stay in business and apps like Deliveroo are able to help them keep their dreams alive.

But, let's jump into the list...

⛳️ Golf - Standout Golf

I love playing golf, it started for me as an "offline hobby" a few years ago to escape from sitting at a desk every day in front of a screen, but, my need to create things got the better of me.

I'm currently toying with the idea of starting my own golf brand called Standout Golf - the idea is to create high-quality golf apparel that looks good on and off the course and performs well too.

Just now this is creating some samples and figuring out the manufacturing process: research, materials, designing tech packs, etc...

The dream would be to focus on this full time, playing golf with customers, getting to design and make something physical that you can touch and feel rather than digital products.

I also love the idea of building a brand or company that's thinking about the environmental and social impact of what it does from day one. The idea of designing a company is fascinating.

🏥 Health tech - Thriva

There is one product that I've been using for the past year or so that I think could evolve into being something very important in everyday life for a lot of people and change the way we think about and own our own health. That company is Thriva.

There are many companies like this, but I choose Thriva because I use it and I love how customer-focused they are. Apart from the product being focused on your personal health, they do things that would benefit you more than the business bottom line and this priority shines through. I've tweeted about a couple of these details before.

Thriva aims to give you health insights and data that you track overtime to see and feel improvements (rather than just blindly taking vitamins or wondering why you aren't sleeping well). They've recently expanded into health plans, and supplements as well - as someone who loves to look at data and track things this is all super cool.

Since I started tracking my own health through them I've never felt better or had more energy (also got rid of long-standing back pain with a few changes), I'd love to be part of the design team that makes these kinds of insights accessible to everyone and envision how deeply it could integrate with your life and change the way we think about our responsibility to our own health. I'd imagine they can help you understand and own your own health from so many different aspects (creating healthy habits, mental health, physical health, nutritional health).

👨‍💻 Social tech - Twitter

I think we all use some form of social tech in one way or another every day, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

One company that stands out as a dream job for me is Twitter. I created my first Twitter account back in 2008 after listening to a @Boagworld podcast - it was a simple fun platform that you would text what you are currently doing in 140 characters or less.

Fast forward 12 years and they are facing huge political challenges (props to whoever got Trump's tweets hidden behind a fact-checker - I'm sure this wasn't an easy fight to win), pushing the product forward, diversifying their team, and combating a whole bunch of social issues.

But the impressive thing, for all its flaws, is that it gets people talking, maybe not in the most productive way all the time. But, I think this is such a powerful tool from finding news before it's reported to hearing peoples stories first hand and connecting with people from every walk of life - I can't wait to see what happens with it over the next decade.