4 Jobs Where You Get to Play With Toys

How many times have you sat at your desk, bored to tears, creating toys out of any object in reach? Do you daydream of leaving your work behind and going back to the creative days of childhood? When you visit your parents for the holidays, are you volunteering to watch your niece or nephew as an excuse to play with your old LEGO set? All this may be calling you back to the dream career you never knew existed: playing with toys full-time.

play with toys

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It’s true. People are being paid real, American dollars to play with real toys. The only question is: are you smart enough to make the cut? Here are a handful of the jobs out there that will pay you to bring out your inner child:

LEGO – Freeform Designer

As a kid playing with LEGOs, the possibilities were near endless. As LEGO’s Freeform Designer, the possibilities are endless. You’ll be responsible for creating new shapes and forms for the building block of most readers’ childhoods. A daunting challenge, but one that most designers would be eager to take on.

LEGO – Builder

And if you’re an avid LEGO fan who’s getting a little FOMO because you don’t have your design degree, there’s another job for you: Builder. You’ll be one of a select handful of people who will get to play with LEGOs for a living.

The concept is that smart LEGO fans can test out new products as they’re being developed, and help work out the kinks and demonstrate the complexity of a given set. So all that practice as a kid can now finally pay off.

Barbie – Dress Designer

There are assuredly designers out there who preferred to express their creativity differently as a child – in less of a block-y way. For them, the thought of designing Barbie’s next dress might be the fairytale job they always dreamed of. 

It’s a pretty straightforward job, but requires a lot of working in advance. Dresses are designed about a year before their release.

Toys R Us – CPO

A toy-tinkering job that can land you in the C-suite? Say it isn’t so! Well … it sort of isn’t so. But the prospect is no less interesting: every so often, the bastion of childhood dreams known as Toys R Us seeks out an 11- to 13-year-old to receive the title of Chief Play Officer. Their role? Play with as many toys as possible.

Tell that ambitious niece of yours that if she wants to become a CEO by 25, you’ve got the perfect starting point in mind.

Tell Us What You Think!

Are you scrambling to finish reading this amazing post so you can apply to one of these jobs yourselves? Does your job let you work with toys? Does this all feel far below your pay grade? Tell us your stories and strong opinions in the comments below, or join the conversation on Twitter!