Name a job with median annual pay over $100,000 in the US

October 22, 2026 · Daily Dive #99

Explore 1,441 recorded answers and their points for question 2 on October 22, 2026.

Current edition7 questions · 14,936 recorded answersNext edition

1,441 recorded names on October 22, 2026, 830 at 85 or higher. The highest recorded score on this question is 100.

Occupational pay tables rank hundreds of roles above the six-figure line, and many of them are not the obvious white-collar titles people shout out first. Any civilian occupation qualifies when official national wage data puts its median annual pay above $100,000; roles that only clear that bar at the top of their range do not.

1,441 recorded answers830 at 85+ points100 highest recorded points
  • One in a Krillion1100 pts
  • Deep Cut82985 pts
  • Rare54260 pts
  • Schooler6130 pts
  • Plankton810 pts
02

Recorded answers

1,441 recorded answers

How to approach it

The efficient route is to treat the question as a memory dump over occupational wage tables rather than a search for one clever reply. Pick a handful of broad sectors, then walk each one from entry-level titles up through supervisory and specialist tiers, because the median is what matters and the middle of a pay distribution sits higher than most people assume. Write down every title that surfaces, even the awkward compound ones, and keep going until you have several dozen candidates. Then prune: anything paid by the hour with overtime-dependent earnings, or any role whose headline salary is really a top-decile figure, is a weak submission. Breadth first, hesitation last.

Get a hint

Start with the broad families where six-figure medians cluster: licensed professions, engineering and applied science, health care specialties, senior managers, and legal or regulatory roles.

A little more

Go narrower than the household names. The reveal is packed with hyphenated specialties, niche inspectors, program directors and technical leads whose titles almost never come up in ordinary conversation.

One step further

Aim for a title that appears as its own line in official wage statistics, often a field word welded to a role word, and remember that public-sector and utility employers pay these salaries too.

Reveal answers 1,441
  • PalynologistDeep Cut85points
  • Patent examinerDeep Cut85points
  • Pediatric hospitalistDeep Cut85points
  • Pediatric infectious disease specialistDeep Cut85points
  • Pediatric intensivistDeep Cut85points
  • PetrologistDeep Cut85points
  • PetrophysicistDeep Cut85points
  • PharmacognosistDeep Cut85points
  • PhilologistDeep Cut85points
  • PhlebologistDeep Cut85points
  • Photographic EngineerDeep Cut85points
  • Photolithography engineerDeep Cut85points
  • Photonics engineerDeep Cut85points
  • Physical Design EngineerDeep Cut85points
  • Pipe Stress EngineerDeep Cut85points
  • Pipeline engineerDeep Cut85points
  • Pipelines SuperintendentDeep Cut85points
  • Placement DirectorDeep Cut85points
  • Planning AnalystDeep Cut85points
  • Planning Development SpecialistDeep Cut85points
  • Planning EngineerDeep Cut85points
  • Planning Management IT SpecialistDeep Cut85points
  • Platform ArchitectDeep Cut85points
  • Plating EngineerDeep Cut85points
  • Plumbing EngineerDeep Cut85points
  • Podiatry professorDeep Cut85points
  • Police SurgeonDeep Cut85points
  • Postmaster GeneralDeep Cut85points
  • Power dispatcherDeep Cut85points
  • Power transformer repairerDeep Cut85points
  • Powerhouse electricianDeep Cut85points
  • Practice managerDeep Cut85points
  • Preventive medicine physicianDeep Cut85points
  • Pricing AnalystDeep Cut85points
  • Print Production ManagerDeep Cut85points
  • Print Traffic ManagerDeep Cut85points
  • Process Improvement ManagerDeep Cut85points
  • Program analystDeep Cut85points
  • Program Development SpecialistDeep Cut85points
  • Program evaluatorDeep Cut85points
  • Program OfficerDeep Cut85points
  • Programming languages researcherDeep Cut85points
  • Project ControllerDeep Cut85points
  • Project SchedulerDeep Cut85points
  • Property Disposal ManagerDeep Cut85points
  • Property Utilization ManagerDeep Cut85points
  • Prospecting ObserverDeep Cut85points
  • Prosthetic Aides TeacherDeep Cut85points
  • Protective Signal Operations SupervisorDeep Cut85points
  • Prototype DeveloperDeep Cut85points

Why these answers count

The scoring is a reminder that this puzzle rewards volume and specificity, not celebrity. Only one recorded answer reached the full 100, which means the reveal's top tier was reserved for a genuinely rare reply; the bulk of the credit sat at 85 for titles that are unusual yet clearly occupational, and at 60 for the merely plausible. Look at the 85-point band and a pattern appears: narrow compound titles such as Accelerator Operator, Accreditation Manager or Acoustician, plus institutional posts like Bureau Chief or Campus Director. These are real jobs with real payroll data behind them, but almost nobody names them at a party, so the crowd-sourced rarity score stays high. Familiar six-figure staples presumably clustered so densely that they fell to the lower bands, since a title everyone types is worth little. The practical lesson: one odd, verifiable specialty outscores a page of obvious ones.

Recorded from the game’s published reveal · Source · Checked 22 Oct, 06:20 UTC

Names and scores reflect the linked dated reveal. The original game makes the final decision on live acceptance. Editorial policy