'Jeopardy!' champion Amy Schneider quits her day job

"Jeopardy!" fan favorite Amy Schneider, whose 40-game winning streak placed her second on the show's list of all-time champions and set historic firsts for women and transgender contestants, has left her day job to pursue a career in writing and public speaking.

"Just want to let you know that I'm aware I've been more silent on here than I anticipated," the Oakland, California, software engineer tweeted Tuesday after six days without posting. "All my plans were based on the idea that a lot fewer people would want to talk to me once my episodes stopped airing, but that was decidedly not the case! I've done some more press, and I've also been taking a ton of meetings with different people that want to work with me in various ways."

Saying that she has "started to plan what charitable work I want to do" and has "worked on a proposal for a book," Schneider went on to announce, "I quit my day job yesterday! It's a bit nerve-wracking to pivot from software engineer to … public figure, I guess? But regardless of the outcome I'm so excited to spend the next couple years at least tackling this new challenge!"

She additionally wrote on LinkedIn, "I'm leaving the tech industry behind (for now, at least) to focus on my new career as a former Jeopardy champion and general public figure. If you're interested in working with me, you can contact me through CAA," a major talent agency. "We'll see how it goes!"

In the immediate future, she'll speak Thursday at the nearly 120-year-old public-affairs forum The Commonwealth Club of California, which on its website lauded "her historic run on one of the most respected game shows in the country" and noted her "major impact on attitudes about the trans community."

Schneider also is among the nominees in this year's Queerties, the annual fan-voted awards of the LGBTQ+ online magazine Queerty, in a category with nine others including Lady Gaga, Kristen Stewart and Queen Latifah, who have contributed to culture in some particularly hard-hitting way. Fans can vote online once daily through Feb. 22. "I'm up against some serious competition (tbh [to be honest] I wouldn't vote for myself from this list lol), but you never know!" Schneider tweeted.

The Ohio native, who has been in the Silicon Valley tech industry since 1999, most recently worked for Fieldwire, a maker of construction jobsite-management software. From Nov. 17 through Jan. 26, she amassed $1,382,800 on "Jeopardy!," making her fourth in regular-season earnings behind Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer and Matt Amodio, and second in number of games won, with 40 next to Jennings' 74. She is the show's highest-earning woman and the highest-earning transgender contestant.