Ted is an architect and university professor. As an architect, he once worked for a big firm, but in Season 4 he gets fired from his firm and decides to become self employed, setting up a firm called "Mosbius Designs." After his one major project falls through, Ted decides to take up an offer made to him by his ex-fiancée's current fiancé Tony to teach architecture at Columbia University. In Season 6, in addition to his teaching position, he is working for Goliath National Bank, designing their new headquarters to be built on the site of an old building called The Arcadian.



Lily is an art consultant for the Captain, the eccentric millionaire who used to be married to Zoey Pierson, whom Ted dated. For most of the series' run, Lily was a kindergarten teacher. For a time (early in Season 2, when she returned from studying art in San Francisco) she worked as a waitress in a Hawaiian-themed restaurant and as an administrative assistant in Ted's architectural firm before returning to teaching. In Season 8 she is hired by the Captain to be his art buyer ("The Ashtray").



Robin is currently an on-air talent for World Wide News, a national cable news channel. In the first season she was a reporter, then a news anchor for a small-time local cable station ("Metro News One," presumably based on real-life station NY1), but quit for a brief stint at Tokyo Ichi (think CNN meets a Japanese game show) in Japan before quitting that job and returning to New York. She went through a period of unemployment but, with Barney's help, was hired by Channel 12 to host their 4 a.m. morning news show, "Come On Get Up New York." In Season 6 she leaves Channel 12 to become an associate researcher for World Wide News, a major news network. Later on, in Season 7, she becomes a co-host for World Wide News along with Sandy Rivers.



Marshall currently works for Honeywell and Cootes, one of the largest environmental law firms in the country. He was a law student in Season 1 and 2, with some time spent interning in the legal department of Barney's company Altrucel; after passing the bar, he worked for the corporate law firm Nicolson, Hewitt and West, but quit partway into Season 3. In Season 4, he takes on a job in the legal department of Goliath National Bank, a company recently acquired by Barney's company, a position he maintains until late in Season 6, when he quits to seek work that is more in line with his passion for saving the environment. Aside from brief stints volunteering for the NRDC and representing Zoey Pierson in her attempt to save the Arcadian, he remained unemployed until Season 7 when he was hired by Garrison Cootes to work for his law firm. At the end of Season 8/the beginning of Season 9, he accepts a position as a judge.



Barney works for Altrucel, a large evil corporation (who prefer to be recognized as the company that puts the fuzz on tennis balls), but what *exactly* he does for the company remains a mystery, a running gag for the show (upon being asked what he does for a living, Barney immediately chuckles and dismisses the question with a "please.") He has since apparently been assigned to work directly for Goliath National Bank, Altrucel's newest acquisition. One of Barney's titles is the "head of the search committee" at GNB, but it is not necessarily his full-time position at the company. Barney's official title is finally revealed in the last season: Barney literally does PLEASE: Provide Legal Exculpation And Sign Everything. In other words, Barney's company was setting him up to be a fall guy, signing off on all his company's shady, illegal dealings in exchange for a large salary. In the end, Barney got the jump on his boss (the same guy who stole his girlfriend Shannon, from back in his hippie/coffee shop days, away from him) by working with federal agents to implicate him for some good, old-fashioned revenge. Edit