Has anyone else thought of working non-developer jobs to find new ideas?

This is a great idea, except you can probably find an engineering job at Costco that would give you access to the same knowledge.

As an engineer, I've made sure to switch industries with every job precisely to learn more about business side of things to find interesting tidbits of improvement.

Hi Tom,

It helps if you're clear about the new ideas you're looking for, and if they align with your work in some way. I don't want to make assumptions about your career path, but if your career trajectory is important to you, consider how finding a job that is very different from what you currently do will help you with overall career goals. :)

Since you're an engineer, one possibility would be to look for product marketing roles. Many tech companies that market to developers desire marketers who have engineering experience since they can craft messaging to that audience. Technical writing is another field where engineers can transition to and learn a ton.

And going with @hatkyinc's suggestion, definitely conduct user interviews with people in any role that you're interested in—and get multiple interviews! Every experience is unique but you'll be able to gather some valuable insights. Maybe what you're looking for is the opportunity to learn about what people do and what they care about, in which case, user interviews can help you accomplish this goal.

Best of luck!

It's true, but don't forget how consuming a job can be, especially if you dislike it, or thing badly of it in some way.

Another path which would provide similar benefits it's just get "in the talk" of people who do the work. For example you can talk / interview people who work there, either friends or random. Or "listen in" as in look at forums / groups of niches you don't know and look at what comes up. There are more precises strategies for example people looking at customer reviews and look at the bad ones, see what others aren't doing ...
Or watch things done by others, "in a day off" videos for example if you can find something that picks your interest, IDK due if there is enough unfiltered stuff there, one should try for the continues takes vs highly edited productions and/or more people that talk without filters... I'm sure there are other ways similar to this to get a glean into stuff without committing to crazy amount of hours... Mostly if you ask people they are easy to tell you stories, good and bad, and if you ask about the worst things and/or what you can fix/improve/build, you'd probably have a ton of input...