A LinkedIn Employee Made His Incredibly Boring-Sounding Job Something To Envy

When Matthew Shoup joined LinkedIn in 2010, he had a pretty run-of-the-mill job title: technical marketer.

But Shoup had a passion for hacking—a term which has come to mean quickly executed feats of coding, not its older connotation of breaking into systems.

And that helped him transform his role into something much more exciting and liberating, Fast Company's David Zax reports. Shoup's new title: hacker-in-residence.

"I started winning (hack days)," Shoup told Fast Company. "And through this series of small wins, people assumed I was working on hacks full time."

As it turns out, he was doing just that.

Shoup says that some of his hacks became prototypes for internal tools, and after a little while, people would pitch their own hack ideas to him.

Now, Shoup says he spends 80% of his time on passion projects, and 20% of his time on his day-to-day duties.

"I'm blessed to be able to shift those priorities," Shoup said.