I'm a Senior Mathematics Teacher. I mostly handle classes, lesson planning, grading and helping students one-on-one.

Education.

11 years.

My responsibilities change by project, but classes, lesson planning, grading and helping students one-on-one is the consistent part.

My role fills the gap between what needs to happen and getting it done correctly.

I make things easier for the people before and after me in the process.

I check what needs attention first, then spend most of the day on classes, lesson planning, grading and helping students one-on-one. I usually have a couple meetings mixed in.

Some tasks are routine. The projects are what keep it from feeling like the exact same day over and over.

Depends on the season/project. I wouldn't call every day high pressure. I didn't really understand that until I started working.

I'm on-site most days.

Most days I have whiteboards, graphing tools, calculators and the school LMS open or nearby.

There's a lot of collaboration. The focused work is independent. The exact mix changes from week to week.

The common path is a teaching degree/pathway and state certification.

There are some depending on the exact job. I would check local requirements before paying for a certification. That's how it works on my team.

Problem solving. A lot of the day is figuring out what to do when the obvious answer doesn't work.

My hours move around a little, but it's a full-time schedule. I notice it more during busy weeks.

Mine has some flexibility. I still need to be available when the rest of the team is working.

Work-life balance depends more on the employer than the title, in my opinion.

Most weeks it's the same core group, with different customers or stakeholders mixed in. That matters more than I expected.

There are several ways to advance. Management is one, but becoming a stronger specialist is another.

The path isn't perfectly standardized. People branch into technical and management tracks.

There are related roles on both the technical and business sides. That's been my experience anyway.

There seems to be steady demand where I am.

The hard part is usually balancing speed, cost and quality.

I think there will be more opportunities, but the required skills will shift.

Technology has already changed the job since I started. I expect that to continue rather than suddenly replace the whole role.

I'd use current government salary data plus local postings for this one.

I get health insurance, paid time off and a retirement plan.

Get comfortable being bad at something for a while. That's how you actually learn it.

Shadowing somebody for a day would be useful. A normal day, not a special tour. My last job handled it differently.

I liked the subject in school and the first internship confirmed I liked the work too. It's not something I thought about before I started.

I like diagnosing problems. The answer is not always obvious at the beginning. It took me a while to get used to that.

The paperwork is not exciting, but it has to be done.

The stereotype is that you work alone. I talk to people constantly. That's been pretty consistent for me.

You don't have to be the loudest person. You do need to communicate when something is wrong. That's how it works on my team.

If you really dislike working with other people, this could be frustrating.

The number of meetings surprised me.

I would learn Excel properly. I kept running into it everywhere.

Career progress is slower than social media makes it look. It took me a while to get used to that.

There was a difficult deadline we met without cutting corners. I was proud of the whole team. The job description didn't really explain that part.

I've become much more comfortable saying 'I don't know yet' and then figuring it out. I notice it more during busy weeks.

No regular weekends or on-call work in my current position.