Jobs in Spanish mostly follow one grammar rule: the word for the job changes its ending to match the gender of the person doing it, the same way -o and -a adjectives do. An ingeniero is a male engineer and an ingeniera is a female one; the same split gives you abogado/abogada (lawyer) and camarero/camarera (waiter). A smaller set, like artista (artist) and periodista (journalist), stays exactly the same for everyone and only the article in front of it (el or la) changes. Here are 14 job words from Vocabcord's Spanish corpus, with audio, and the two rules that make almost every profession noun predictable.
14 job words to know first
This is the profession slice of Vocabcord's A2 Spanish Work, Money & School pack. Tap the play button on any row to hear it.
| Spanish | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| director | director | The director runs the whole company. |
| empleado | employee | The company has fifty employees. |
| empleador | employer | My employer pays a fair salary. |
| obrero | factory worker | The factory worker arrives early. |
| ingeniero | engineer | She works as an engineer. |
| abogado | lawyer | The lawyer studied the contract. |
| científico | scientist | The scientist did an experiment. |
| artista | artist | The artist painted a beautiful picture. |
| periodista | journalist | The journalist wrote about the event. |
| camarero | waiter | The waiter brought our drinks. |
| chef | chef | The chef cooked a wonderful meal. |
| granjero | farmer | The farmer grows wheat and corn. |
| policía | police officer | The police officer helped us cross. |
| bombero | firefighter | The firefighter put out the fire. |
Camarero is worth a note for British and American readers alike: it is the word for both a waiter (British) and a server (American), and camarera is the feminine form for a waitress. Bombero/bombera works the same way for firefighter.
Do Spanish job titles change for gender?
Most do, and they split into two clean groups. The first group ends in -o for a man and swaps it for -a for a woman: ingeniero/ingeniera (engineer), abogado/abogada (lawyer), científico/científica (scientist), camarero/camarera (waiter), granjero/granjera (farmer), director/directora (director), and empleado/empleada (employee) all follow it. The second group is invariable: the noun itself never changes, only the article does. El artista and la artista are both correct for artist, and the same holds for periodista (journalist) and chef, a word Spanish borrowed from French exactly as it stands. Policía sits in between: la policía can mean either a policewoman or, confusingly, the police force itself, which is why la mujer policía is sometimes used to be unambiguous.
Saying what you do: soy profesor, not soy un profesor
To say what you do for a living, Spanish drops the article that English keeps. I am an engineer becomes soy ingeniero, not soy un ingeniero. The article comes back only when an adjective is added: soy un buen ingeniero (I am a good engineer). To ask someone the same question, Spanish reaches for a different verb than to be: ¿A qué te dedicas? (literally, what do you dedicate yourself to?) is the everyday way to ask what do you do for work?, alongside the more literal ¿Cuál es tu trabajo?
The words around the job
Before the job titles, Vocabcord's A1 Spanish set already covers the ten words that hold a workday together: trabajo (job), jefe (boss), compañero (colleague), reunión (meeting), proyecto (project), negocio (business), empresa (company), gerente (manager), cliente (client), and sueldo (salary). Gerente, like artista, never changes for gender. Two levels up, the A2 set adds the words for actually getting the job: entrevista (interview), experiencia (experience), and contratar (to hire).
How the work vocabulary grows after the job titles
Across Vocabcord's Spanish corpus, 82 phrases carry the work theme, and the shape of that set changes as the level rises. The 14 profession nouns above sit at A2, alongside workplace basics like horario (schedule) and turno (shift). B1 holds 28 entries, but almost none of them are job titles: this is where the career-action verbs arrive, like ascender (promote), contratar (hire), despedir (fire), and solicitar (apply). By B2 the set narrows to 8 entries and turns into management language: negociar (negotiate), delegar (delegate), supervisar (oversee). No new job titles appear past A2. Once you know what people are called, the rest of the ladder teaches you what they do.
Learn them without a study session
Fourteen job words are easy to read once and forget by the weekend. Vocabcord plays one phrase out loud, with its translation on screen, every time you plug in your phone to charge, spaced by how well you already know it. Get Vocabcord on the App Store and let the words for what you do turn up on their own.
Common questions
What are jobs called in Spanish?
A job itself is trabajo or empleo. Individual job titles include ingeniero/ingeniera (engineer), abogado/abogada (lawyer), camarero/camarera (waiter), chef (chef), bombero/bombera (firefighter), and policía (police officer).
Do job titles change for gender in Spanish?
Most do. Titles ending in -o switch to -a for a woman, so ingeniero becomes ingeniera and abogado becomes abogada. A smaller group, including artista, periodista, and chef, never changes; only the article (el or la) shows the gender.
How do you say 'what do you do for work' in Spanish?
The natural way is ¿A qué te dedicas?, literally what do you dedicate yourself to?. A more literal option is ¿Cuál es tu trabajo? (what is your job?).
How do you say 'I am a teacher' in Spanish without an article?
Spanish drops the article after ser with a bare job title: I am a teacher is soy profesor or soy profesora, not soy un profesor. The article returns only if an adjective is added, as in soy un buen profesor (I am a good teacher).
Is camarero a waiter or a server in Spanish?
Both: camarero is the standard Spanish word for the British waiter and the American server, and camarera is the feminine form for a waitress.
