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Tradespeople will be the new software engineers in the late 2020s through 2030s. Enough that I'm considering leaving my cushy FAANG engineering manager job to

Tradespeople will be the new software engineers in the late 2020s through 2030s. Enough that I'm considering leaving my cushy FAANG engineering manager job to become an electrician. On top of the huge supply shortage, consider that the majority of the U.S. housing stock was built during the Baby Boom suburbanization from 1950-1970, and that the average lifespan of a house's internal systems (plumbing, electrical) is about 65 years. There's a massive maintenance bill coming due right around 2025. Right as the housing stock is largely owned by boomers on fixed incomes who won't have time, money, or health to fix it. Millennials will start inheriting houses en masse around 2035, which solves the housing crisis, but they're going to be houses in various states of disrepair. There's probably also a lot of room for innovation in home construction and repair - possibly an area where robotics could make a big difference. Unfortunately this is a known "hard problem", where past attempts at mechanization haven't really helped much.

UncleMeat 4y ago
Tradespeople will definitely not be making 300k+ off a few years of experience five years from now.
- nostrademons 4y ago
  Extend that out to 10 years from now and I'll take that bet. Price goes up dramatically in the face of supply shortages, because when there's a shortage you pick your customers instead of them picking you, and some customers have a lot more money than others. Same reason software engineers make $300K/year after a few years experience (when I started my career 15 years ago $100K was considered a very good mid-career salary, and still is in some locales), and good childcare in the Bay Area now runs about $3000/month, and homes are $3M.
  - kilroy123 4y ago
    I think there will be money in making a trades _business_. Not you doing the work, but you hiring and managing others who do the work.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  I think this is actually one of those predictions that might not turn out the way you think. Economies are all about supply and demand, not how long or complicated the job title is. The government is increasingly ignoring the problem, the higher-education-industrial-complex is grabbing workers that would otherwise go into the trades, mass-importation of unskilled labor is slowing down as it becomes more of a political minefield (In the EU and the US). The confluence of all those factors will squeeze a limited labor pool, and prices will continue to increase. I think it's not unlikely that in 5-10 years we enter a crisis where critical infrastructure starts failing and the government has to start up a "Learn to Weld" program instead of "Learn to Code" program because things have gone so far out of balance.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    Economies are about supply and demand. But wages are not directly tied to the demand for the trades. Wages are controlled by the bosses. Even if the price of wiring up a new home goes up, I would not expect the bulk of that increase to be reflected in the wages of the electricians (at least in the US).
    - nostrademons 4y ago
      Trades are one of those areas (along with software engineering) where it is relatively easy to be your own boss. The market in general is pretty competitive on both the buyer (lots of individual homeowners needing work done) and seller (lots of small independent contractors selling their labor) sides; that should make overall prices & wages reflect industry-wide (or at least local) supply & demand pretty well. ConstructionPhysics has a pretty good series about why the construction industry never really realized economies of scale the way most other industries do. Even when you have large homebuilders like D.R. Horton, their primary competitive advantage is usually reduced cost of capital, which goes away if capital becomes expensive for everyone. https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-few-economies-of https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- Ekaros 4y ago
  And if they were, who could afford to pay them that? Other tradespeople? Ultra-rich?
  - nostrademons 4y ago
    That part is relatively easy to answer. When there are only enough tradespeople to maintain 10% of homes, the top 10% of income earners will get their services, and the top 10% will spend a majority of their wealth on home maintenance. It's already happening in areas with a lot of rich people and few tradespeople - it costs me $1000 to run a camera down my sewer line, $4K to roto-root it, about $20-30K to fix a collapsed pipe. The top-10% has been doing fine in terms of income, but now that it's so un-economical to go into a field other than tech or finance, they're going to have to spend a lot of that on essential services.
    - ryandrake 4y ago
      Most of the trades companies around me won't even pick up the phone for a job less than $10K. And even then, they're booked out months in advance. These companies are making a fortune. Not sure how much of it trickles down to tradespeople wages, but from reading other threads on this article, it doesn't look like those guys don't get paid a lot, as a percentage of what's billed to the customer.
- radiator 4y ago
  Tangential, but inflation is so high, we could all be earning millions by the end of the decade.
seydor 4y ago
Nah, tradespeople will be replaced with lego buildings, the same way that furniture makers were replaced with ikea
- akavi 4y ago
  Will that happen faster than the shift of AI into knowledge work? Because the current trajectory has robots taking our "manipulate bits" jobs far faster than our "move atoms" ones.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Who knows. On the one hand there have been attempts to get rid of the "manipulates bits" people forever, GUI/Drag and Drop code editors, outsourcing etc. and it always comes back to the edge cases never working and every projecting having tons of edge cases. Maybe this will finally be the time or maybe the AI still can't handle the edge cases. Seeing as how the market is slowly walking away from self driving promises(probably due to the edge cases) maybe we aren't there yet.
- nostrademons 4y ago
  That's the plan, but reality currently falls far short of that. My sister's currently looking at modular houses. There isn't much of a price difference between them vs. building on site, and you deal with a lot of hassles around transportation, site preparation, and permitting/paperwork.
1970-01-01 4y ago
I think that's mostly accurate. Demand won't be high forever. A hybrid approach will develop. Software and tech in the day, welding and plumbing in the evening. Eventually, whatever the young employee values more will be prioritized for a career.
dogman144 4y ago
I’ve thought similar. With a nest egg you keep in your back pocket that can get you out of a shop hierarchy and into ownership quickly, accounting for Lego houses and whatever other innovations, programming some of your own stuff as needed, there’s a path for honest workers who are really good and on time to make good money. Pick a wealthy area as your operating zone. Leverage the SWE social class and your trade skills. My relatives who own mom and pop contracting and plumbing companies have carved out solid lives for themselves and their kids. The downside is they’re working into their 60s, but with a good nest egg from tech that might be different. My relatives who rode the MBA and finance paths ended up all over the map - didn’t survive the Great Recession, did fine, are in tech but it’s lost the shine, ended up as a total goober as retired executive without a company to exec…
confidantlake 4y ago
You are going to leave your mid 6 figure job to do a physically demanding mid 5 figure job? Good luck!
- nostrademons 4y ago
  I don't believe those relative wages are going to hold. I got into software engineering when it was a high-5-figure to low-6-figure job. At the time, conventional wisdom was that the money was in finance, law, or medicine. Medicine has held up well, but wages in finance and law have fallen well below what software engineers make. Hell, lawyers frequently make less than plumbers do now, hence this joke: https://unijokes.com/joke-929/ https://unijokes.com/joke-929/
thedccontractor 4y ago
Hey y'all, long time reader first time writer. The op is absolutely right that there's a large bill coming due. A lot of the conversation about our infrastructure has been in reference to the New deal projects and Eisenhower projects around the country. However, in addition to our increasingly fragile housing stock the largest transfer of wealth in history is set to happen at the same time these houses will change hands. A poster below commented that a few years of experience won't be enough to be pulling a multiple six figure income when that occurs but I disagree. In most states in the country 5 years is the amount of time necessary to enter a union and gain a master's license. From there you would have the licensure and expertise to start your own company, consult or find a high paying job in the trades. I also think that roboticization is not something that will occur until late in our lifetimes and likely only for new construction projects. I recently started a company in DC called The DC Contractor. I'm looking to expand this year and if there's anyone in the area who would be interested in connecting you can find me online, feel free to send me a message. I believe anyone that would truly find more satisfaction in the trades couldn't pick a better time to start learning the skills even if they aren't hard skills. i.e. learning how to operate a business,project management, financials, DOB regulations, gov regulations for federal projects etc... Could all be immensely valuable and there's a lot of room for creativity in the space. Fwiw, that's my two cents. Happy New Year. Edit: seemed worth noting that my starting pay for any employee is around ~$25 an hour. Granted I live in a large metropolitan area but when I started doing this work 20 years ago $11 to $12 an hour was pretty standard entry level pay. That number is just to hire anyone that will show up consistently because the market has gotten so crazy in the last couple of years. I would pay considerably more for someone with the necessary skills to let me take a more hands off approach.

UncleMeat 4y ago

Tradespeople will definitely not be making 300k+ off a few years of experience five years from now.

nostrademons 4y ago
Extend that out to 10 years from now and I'll take that bet. Price goes up dramatically in the face of supply shortages, because when there's a shortage you pick your customers instead of them picking you, and some customers have a lot more money than others. Same reason software engineers make $300K/year after a few years experience (when I started my career 15 years ago $100K was considered a very good mid-career salary, and still is in some locales), and good childcare in the Bay Area now runs about $3000/month, and homes are $3M.
- kilroy123 4y ago
  I think there will be money in making a trades _business_. Not you doing the work, but you hiring and managing others who do the work.
oceanplexian 4y ago
I think this is actually one of those predictions that might not turn out the way you think. Economies are all about supply and demand, not how long or complicated the job title is. The government is increasingly ignoring the problem, the higher-education-industrial-complex is grabbing workers that would otherwise go into the trades, mass-importation of unskilled labor is slowing down as it becomes more of a political minefield (In the EU and the US). The confluence of all those factors will squeeze a limited labor pool, and prices will continue to increase. I think it's not unlikely that in 5-10 years we enter a crisis where critical infrastructure starts failing and the government has to start up a "Learn to Weld" program instead of "Learn to Code" program because things have gone so far out of balance.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  Economies are about supply and demand. But wages are not directly tied to the demand for the trades. Wages are controlled by the bosses. Even if the price of wiring up a new home goes up, I would not expect the bulk of that increase to be reflected in the wages of the electricians (at least in the US).
  - nostrademons 4y ago
    Trades are one of those areas (along with software engineering) where it is relatively easy to be your own boss. The market in general is pretty competitive on both the buyer (lots of individual homeowners needing work done) and seller (lots of small independent contractors selling their labor) sides; that should make overall prices & wages reflect industry-wide (or at least local) supply & demand pretty well. ConstructionPhysics has a pretty good series about why the construction industry never really realized economies of scale the way most other industries do. Even when you have large homebuilders like D.R. Horton, their primary competitive advantage is usually reduced cost of capital, which goes away if capital becomes expensive for everyone. https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-few-economies-of https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Ekaros 4y ago
And if they were, who could afford to pay them that? Other tradespeople? Ultra-rich?
- nostrademons 4y ago
  That part is relatively easy to answer. When there are only enough tradespeople to maintain 10% of homes, the top 10% of income earners will get their services, and the top 10% will spend a majority of their wealth on home maintenance. It's already happening in areas with a lot of rich people and few tradespeople - it costs me $1000 to run a camera down my sewer line, $4K to roto-root it, about $20-30K to fix a collapsed pipe. The top-10% has been doing fine in terms of income, but now that it's so un-economical to go into a field other than tech or finance, they're going to have to spend a lot of that on essential services.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    Most of the trades companies around me won't even pick up the phone for a job less than $10K. And even then, they're booked out months in advance. These companies are making a fortune. Not sure how much of it trickles down to tradespeople wages, but from reading other threads on this article, it doesn't look like those guys don't get paid a lot, as a percentage of what's billed to the customer.
radiator 4y ago
Tangential, but inflation is so high, we could all be earning millions by the end of the decade.

seydor 4y ago

Nah, tradespeople will be replaced with lego buildings, the same way that furniture makers were replaced with ikea

akavi 4y ago
Will that happen faster than the shift of AI into knowledge work? Because the current trajectory has robots taking our "manipulate bits" jobs far faster than our "move atoms" ones.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Who knows. On the one hand there have been attempts to get rid of the "manipulates bits" people forever, GUI/Drag and Drop code editors, outsourcing etc. and it always comes back to the edge cases never working and every projecting having tons of edge cases. Maybe this will finally be the time or maybe the AI still can't handle the edge cases. Seeing as how the market is slowly walking away from self driving promises(probably due to the edge cases) maybe we aren't there yet.
nostrademons 4y ago
That's the plan, but reality currently falls far short of that. My sister's currently looking at modular houses. There isn't much of a price difference between them vs. building on site, and you deal with a lot of hassles around transportation, site preparation, and permitting/paperwork.

1970-01-01 4y ago

I think that's mostly accurate. Demand won't be high forever. A hybrid approach will develop. Software and tech in the day, welding and plumbing in the evening. Eventually, whatever the young employee values more will be prioritized for a career.

dogman144 4y ago

I’ve thought similar. With a nest egg you keep in your back pocket that can get you out of a shop hierarchy and into ownership quickly, accounting for Lego houses and whatever other innovations, programming some of your own stuff as needed, there’s a path for honest workers who are really good and on time to make good money. Pick a wealthy area as your operating zone. Leverage the SWE social class and your trade skills. My relatives who own mom and pop contracting and plumbing companies have carved out solid lives for themselves and their kids. The downside is they’re working into their 60s, but with a good nest egg from tech that might be different. My relatives who rode the MBA and finance paths ended up all over the map - didn’t survive the Great Recession, did fine, are in tech but it’s lost the shine, ended up as a total goober as retired executive without a company to exec…

confidantlake 4y ago

You are going to leave your mid 6 figure job to do a physically demanding mid 5 figure job? Good luck!

nostrademons 4y ago
I don't believe those relative wages are going to hold. I got into software engineering when it was a high-5-figure to low-6-figure job. At the time, conventional wisdom was that the money was in finance, law, or medicine. Medicine has held up well, but wages in finance and law have fallen well below what software engineers make. Hell, lawyers frequently make less than plumbers do now, hence this joke: https://unijokes.com/joke-929/ https://unijokes.com/joke-929/

thedccontractor 4y ago

Hey y'all, long time reader first time writer. The op is absolutely right that there's a large bill coming due. A lot of the conversation about our infrastructure has been in reference to the New deal projects and Eisenhower projects around the country. However, in addition to our increasingly fragile housing stock the largest transfer of wealth in history is set to happen at the same time these houses will change hands. A poster below commented that a few years of experience won't be enough to be pulling a multiple six figure income when that occurs but I disagree. In most states in the country 5 years is the amount of time necessary to enter a union and gain a master's license. From there you would have the licensure and expertise to start your own company, consult or find a high paying job in the trades. I also think that roboticization is not something that will occur until late in our lifetimes and likely only for new construction projects. I recently started a company in DC called The DC Contractor. I'm looking to expand this year and if there's anyone in the area who would be interested in connecting you can find me online, feel free to send me a message. I believe anyone that would truly find more satisfaction in the trades couldn't pick a better time to start learning the skills even if they aren't hard skills. i.e. learning how to operate a business,project management, financials, DOB regulations, gov regulations for federal projects etc... Could all be immensely valuable and there's a lot of room for creativity in the space. Fwiw, that's my two cents. Happy New Year. Edit: seemed worth noting that my starting pay for any employee is around ~$25 an hour. Granted I live in a large metropolitan area but when I started doing this work 20 years ago $11 to $12 an hour was pretty standard entry level pay. That number is just to hire anyone that will show up consistently because the market has gotten so crazy in the last couple of years. I would pay considerably more for someone with the necessary skills to let me take a more hands off approach.