What was Fyodor Dostoevsky’s profession before he became a full-time writer?

Before becoming a full-time writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky worked as a military engineer.

Dostoevsky studied at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute in Saint Petersburg and graduated in 1843. He then served briefly in the Engineering Department before leaving government service to pursue literature.

His engineering education gave him technical training, but he was already strongly interested in fiction and literary culture. Poor Folk, his first published novel, appeared in 1846 and made his name in Russian literary circles.

Dostoevsky’s later life was shaped more by writing, imprisonment, exile, and journalism than by engineering. His early career is nevertheless an important part of his biography and is sometimes overlooked in accounts focused only on his novels.