Dad, What do you do?

My job description and title are Software Consultant, Senior Software Developer. I talk to people about problems that they need to solve, usually in networking, data storage, and automation domains. Clients usually have something in their network that they want to send to another network and vice versa. They may have data that they need to search quickly or tasks that are done by people that can be automated to provide a repeatable solution.

Most problems can be solved with existing software, usually from several sources. I design solutions using these sources, write some additional software to make these components work together, and write documentation for developers that will maintain it once the client has accepted the solution.