He works at the Royal Society

A booklet on capillary action was Hooke's first piece of writing. His report, which demonstrated that the higher the water ascended in the tube, the narrower it was, was read to the Society on April 10th, 1661. By this point, the Gresham Society had requested from King Charles II recognition and a royal grant of incorporation. A Curator of Experiments was to be appointed by the terms of the Royal Charter, which established the Royal Society of London and was approved by the Great Seal on July 15, 1662. The Society had previously planned to name Hooke to this post, and on November 5th, 1662, he was awarded the job. In many respects, it didn't seem like a great lot because he was expected to present three or four experiments at each Society meeting, which was completely unreasonable and unlikely to be accomplished by anybody other than Hooke. Hooke was compelled to complete the task without payment until the Society was in a position to do so, even though it was believed that they would eventually be able to compensate him.

In reality, over the next 15 years, Hooke responded to the impossible job given to him by coming up with a ton of innovative ideas. Society indeed flourished as a result of Hooke's stream of ideas, but the demands also fully exploited Hooke's talent. On the one hand, it appeared to fit his character to have his thoughts hop from one half-formed notion to the next, even if the demands meant that he never had time to develop his ideas over time as one would expect a renowned scientist to do. On June 3rd, 1663, he was elected to the Royal Society, and although he was still not being paid, the Society was willing to let him become a Fellow without having to pay the annual dues.

The Society agreed to pay Hooke £80 per year in salary in 1664, but shortly afterward they arranged for him to hold the position of Cutlerian Lecturer in the Mechanical Arts at a salary of £50 per year. Later, they decreased his salary to £30 per year as Curator of Experiments while appointing him to a position for life. As a result, this did not give Hooke the financial security he might have hoped for. The Society frequently did not have enough money to pay Hooke as Curator of Experiments, and when he wasn't paid for his duties as Cutlerian Lecturer in the Mechanical Arts, he was forced to go to court to get payment. Nevertheless, he managed to acquire another position, as Professor of Geometry at Gresham College in London, where he was appointed in 1665. He was given college housing in exchange for delivering one lecture every week during the academic year. It was necessary to deliver the lecture in Latin before repeating it in English. In December 1691, Hooke got the title "Doctor of Physics."