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Asking for a friend: Would it be a good idea for the average jaded tech worker to learn to be an electrician? Why or why not? Pretend we're talking about someo

• camhenlin 4y ago
  The training going from apprentice to electrician is long, there’s lots of hard work, and the pay at the apprentice end isn’t good. It’s a good career to start in from a relatively young age, tougher to break into the older you get.
• amir734jj 4y ago
  No sure about being an electrician. But I know plumbers in my area make almost the same (sometimes even more than) as FAANG engineers.
  • roflyear 4y ago
    I'm not sure there are many plumbers making $300k/yr?
    • amir734jj 4y ago
      Not $300k. But healthy $200k in Midwest is a lot of money.
      • roflyear 4y ago
        Yeah I can believe $200k if you're doing commercial stuff running a crew. Unsure how much of that work there is in the Midwest. No way you're making $200k doing residential work, even in large cities. Definitely not if you aren't on your own.
    • bombcar 4y ago
      The usual progression is start working as an apprentice and then as a plumber for a larger agency, then on your own, then you become the larger agency and hire assistants and other plumbers, then you “retire”. The latter part can be quite lucrative.
      • the_only_law 4y ago
        This is like saying you can make billions as a software developer, when in reality you’re talking about a startup founder with a software business.
      • roflyear 4y ago
        Yes.... but that's running a company, not being a plumber lol!
        • bombcar 4y ago
          It's very important to distinguish that stuff, because as we saw in The Millionaire Next Door you can often end up classifying someone as "electrician" or "plumber" when more properly they should be classified as "small business owner".
• Dalewyn 4y ago
  Even if you end up not making a profession out of it, knowing how to wire stuff up in your home will end up saving you a lot of money and time.
  • pxx 4y ago
    You can do this without the opportunity cost of an apprenticeship.
    • rchaud 4y ago
      What about the risk of burning your house down?
      • sokoloff 4y ago
        Walk through the electrical aisle at a Home Depot on any given weekend. You'll see hundreds of casual DIYers buying electrical supplies. Almost no house fires result from 104 weekend days every year worth of those DIYers doing this work.
      • toast0 4y ago
        Learning to do things right and learning what things to not touch isn't that hard. If you limit yourself to simple work like replacing outlets, switches, and hardwired lamps, that's most of the likely electrical work for an existing house. Call a profesional for new circuits and maybe for replacing breakers; IMHO, it's a scary box, but the work is straight forward, so I'll replace breakers, but I would (and have) definitely call out for a breaker box replacement.
      • zamnos 4y ago
        [flagged]
        • briHass 4y ago
          Agree, but I would definitely caution with getting your advice from YouTube. There are many, many home improvement YTers that give incorrect/dangerous advice. This isn't limited to small channels with Joe Blow working on his house; I've seen NEC violations galore and general bad practices on some of the larger DIY/contractor channels. If you get beyond the basic 'replace a light switch' level, the NEC often contains levels of ambiguity and dependencies on other rules that you might not be aware apply. It's also written in a legalese style that takes some time to be able to penetrate the jargon. Just take a look at electrician forums or even Stack Exchange to see how seemingly simple things result in arguments.
• eddsh1994 4y ago
  I wouldn't prematurely leave on the basis of AI, if it does happen you('re friend) can retrain there and then. Chances are there will be all sorts of jobs still requiring technical knowledge when that time comes, if it comes. If it's an interest you('re friend) has then why not take a couple evening classes to slowly get the foundational skills & ensure you have enough of savings to make that jump in the future if needed? Fwiw, I live in the Bay Area and one of the best paid people I know is an electrician - he can pull in $1k a day on some jobs - so the upside is there too.
  • px43 4y ago
    Isn't 1k a day like, even if it was every day, an entry level tech job in the bay area? Surely you know some people who are making 400k+ in the bay area.
    • zamnos 4y ago
      $250k/yr is attainable, but it's a bit higher than entry level. Fresh out of college, $100k/yr seems a bit more reasonable. Which is still a whole hell of a lot, way more than I made, but I didn't go to Stanford/MIT/etc.
    • eddsh1994 4y ago
      Na, entry level roles are really around 120k. I know some people on higher amounts sure, but even places like Atherton and Woodside have average household incomes of $300/350k. I live in Palo Alto and have found the 200k mark for startups is pretty good for a fairly senior engineer at a cool company. Of course in the HN bubble we’re all making $1m before bonuses :)
  • pxx 4y ago
    $1k a day as a 1099 contractor is comparable to new grad w-2 compensation at a software firm in the bay area even before considering expenses...
    • eddsh1994 4y ago
      That’s not as a contractor but as a master union electrician, and from what I gather it’s shift work on reactors so spending several months on site at that rate then having holiday until another gig comes up.
• petre 4y ago
  We have an electrician friend in Vancouver but he barely makes ends meet.
  • rchaud 4y ago
    That checks out. I'm always skeptical of these happily-ever-after stories about working in the trades. We've been hearing about a shortage of plumbers and electricians in developed countries for decades. One would think that young people would rush in to fill this gap, given the risk of getting a costly degree only to end up working at a Starbucks. And yet, the HVAC and electrician industry remains understaffed. Maybe it's not such a great industry to work in?
    • petre 4y ago
      Lots of physical work for HVAC. Young people have other workforce dynamics as they often move from a job to the next, so maybe that explains the working at a Starbucks for a few months which quicly becomes wasted year or two. Also you won't get them doing two years of apprenticeship paying peanuts, they'll leave and seek other opportunities. Which is quite fine, can't really blame them.
• runjake 4y ago
  I know a couple (so, n=2) of highly-skilled tech people who made the jump to being an electrician. They actually progressed rapidly. Neither regret making the jump. One downside: they get pulled into more low voltage/systems work and they hate that part of the job as they wanted to get away from computers.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    If you go the elechicken route specializing in low voltage is a great distinguishing talent; many electricians don’t like it and don’t want to understand it; even being able to diagnose a cat 6 drop with a tester can be worth. And some localities don’t consider low voltage to be electrical at all and you need no training/licensing.
    • briffle 4y ago
      Had a network drop in a VIP office that worked fine for 10 years until we upgraded to gigabit (this was around 2010). Our very, very crappy cable testers (basic continuity testers) all said the line was good. Had a low voltage guy we used test the line, he ripped it out, and found out half way up the wall, the wire was cut, and then each strand was spliced with electrical tape back together.
      • bombcar 4y ago
        The "high end" testers that do actual transmissions are worth the investment, if you do much wire-related work. And yes, so much of the "in building" wiring was done by electricians who only had experience with telephone cabling, and it can be notoriously sloppy.
• gwd 4y ago
  My cousin was an electrician for a number of years, but gave up because he said it was too hard on his body; particularly his hands. He's now a welder. Don't know how much that's particular to his body / the kind of work he was doing.
  • bluSCALE4 4y ago
    Welding lets out toxic fumes so cancer is a concern. Specifically lung cancer.
• djfobbz 4y ago
  Yes, being an electrician is a great field to be in! At minimum, you can expect to make $68k/yr with a Journeyman Electrician license and north of $100k+/yr with a Master Electrician license. If you further specialized in something like HVAC and had your own business handling commercial accounts, you can easily do revenues around $3MM/yr if not more.
• expertentipp 4y ago
  Only software industry is so welcoming to unqualified people. In other technical professions even as "simple" as electrician or carpenter without solid apprenticeship started at young age, you'll never make money after switching in later age.
  • rchaud 4y ago
    That's because the 'software industry' has a lot of jobs that have nothing to do with coding. Being in the vicinity of that however can be helpful for bridging the learning gap. Even then, the amount of credentialism is extremely high for anything besides the lowest rung of dev jobs. Look at how people on HN turn their noses up at bootcamps, or really anything less than a CS undergrad degree.
    • the_only_law 4y ago
      > Even then, the amount of credentialism is extremely high for anything besides the lowest rung of dev jobs. Biggest mistake I made was not going to school and buying into the “you don’t need a degree” stuff. While technically true, it feels extremely limiting when you want to venture outside that “lowest rung”.
    • wiseowise 4y ago
      > Look at how people on HN turn their noses up at bootcamps, or really anything less than a CS undergrad degree. And for a good reason.
      • rchaud 4y ago
        My point is that they'll treat a self-taught person who wants to go into software development the exact same way. It's not bootcamps don't make you build real projects and put them on Github.
• wombat_trouble 4y ago
  I mean, it's a reasonable career choice. Practical downsides: considerably lower pay right now compared to a job at FAANG, although certainly nothing to sneeze at. A profession regulated far more than necessary, similarly to many other blue collar fields - for example in California, you need 8,000 hours of apprenticeship to get a license. You are also technically required to deal with municipal bureaucracies and get sign-offs on almost every single thing you do, although most electricians follow these rules rather liberally, and there's a ton of unpermitted work in every older house. You're less vulnerable to AI, but you sure are vulnerable to downturns in construction. You serve at the pleasure of your clients. You're gonna be getting emergency calls at weird hours and you're gonna be spending a lot of time in your car. It's physical labor - you're gonna be spending some time in crawl spaces or other uncomfortable positions, it's rough on your hands, etc.
  • germinalphrase 4y ago
    “ considerably lower pay right now compared to a job at FAANG” Almost all jobs everywhere pay considerably less than FAANG. I find it curious that HN so casually uses FAANG pay as the benchmark.
    • gjsman-1000 4y ago
      > but you sure are vulnerable to downturns in construction This is also a really weird point. If you work at FAANG, you are vulnerable to economic downturns. Just look at how so many tech companies have decimated their workforce.
      • pdmccormick 4y ago
        Kudos to you for the correct use of "decimate".
      • wiseowise 4y ago
        Majority kept their job, what’s your point?
      • ifyoubuildit 4y ago
• blamazon 4y ago
  I think generally yes, it's a worthy jump, but one reason why not - these types of jobs can take a serious toll on your body. This can be mitigated of course, just like how a desk worker can mitigate the risks of sitting for so many hours a day, but it may be harder to mitigate for a trades job.
• akiselev 4y ago
  That really depends on what you mean by "tech worker" but moving from knowledge work to trade work rarely works out unless you're already a master craftsman and just switching to an artisan business full time. The salaries are significantly lower, to the point where 90th percentile electricians often make less than 10th percentile engineers [1]. It is a physically demanding job that will lead to health issues and is no more immune to psychologically abusive management than tech with added life-or-death liability. Don't confuse owning a business that hires its electricians to customers with actually being an electrician. The former is very lucrative, the latter much less so. It takes many brutal years to get from the latter to the former. [1] As opposed to QA, customer service, etc, which are more comparable hence the "tech worker" caveat
  • Nextgrid 4y ago
    This is very much a US perspective. In the UK for example, software engineering is nothing special with regards to compensation and trades can in fact yield more.
    • sirbranedamuj 4y ago
      well the post as a whole is a US perspective: "America Is Trying to Electrify..."
  • ysavir 4y ago
    > The salaries are significantly lower, to the point where 90th percentile electricians often make less than 10th percentile engineers [1] Do you have a source for this? How much of that derives from tech workers generally living in high COL areas and needing higher salaries, while electricians are distributed throughout the land at all COL? I have no doubt that high-earning engineers outearn high-earning electricians, but the assumption about this disparity seems suspect to me, without a source to back it up.
    • akiselev 4y ago
      The 90/10 number is definitely biased towards California, but the national numbers really aren't that better. The 75th percentile for electricians is $77,350 [1] and the 25th percentile for developers is $90,870 [2] so the overall number is probably closer to 80/20 or even 85/15. [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472111.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472111.htm [2] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm
• somenameforme 4y ago
  About 5 years ago there was a discussion online. Somebody was considering getting a C class driver's license - commercial/trucking. This seemed like a horrible idea because this was right in the midst of the 'in 2 years we'll have full self driving' stuff. Somehow, 5 years later we're still right in the midst of 'in 2 years we'll have full self driving.' And there are now more commercial truckers than ever, with wages higher than ever. As for electrician: universal demand, get paid to learn, and a really interesting skill on top of it all? I mean even if it doesn't end up being somebody's final career, it just sounds like a really interesting idea.
• brianwawok 4y ago
  How do you feel about making $15-20 an hour for a few years while you level up in the union? How do you feel about standing on ladders and pulling wires with your hands for 8 hours a day? How about when it's -10F outside? (may not matter depending on where you live). I think it has both pros and cons over software dev. For sure the success metric is clear (thing works and passes code and inspection? it's done). Vs the fuzzy software dev requirements. But it also can be a lot more physical.
• SkyPuncher 4y ago
  Do you enjoy being in nasty attics and crawlspaces? Unless you're contracted on commercial projects, that's a large part of the job.
  • Nextgrid 4y ago
    You also need to consider the building standards and general condition of buildings in your local area. This can vary between states/countries and some might be more enjoyable than others.
  • polski-g 4y ago
    If you own your own company, just refuse those jobs or charge more to make it worthwhile.
• nemo44x 4y ago
  Where I live it takes about 5 years of working experience as an apprentice to even be allowed to apply for a license. So you're going to throw away 5 years of earning to get to the point you can go on your own and charge market rates. I'd probably say you missed the boat if you're over 30 at this point.
• Spooky23 4y ago
  If you’re early career and have a spouse who can help support you in the early years, hell yes. It’s a good gig.
• physhster 4y ago
  Same boat: I have been thinking about actually starting a modern General Contracting business, but the licensing requirements make it impossible.
• pkdpic 4y ago
  I asked bing for you(r friend) and it was generally encouraging. Apprenticeships take four years, you need a HS diploma etc etc. It had a good insight about joining a union as a first step to help find an apprenticeship though. I think I heard that long ago from a human electrician. bing > consider joining a union or a professional group that can offer you guidance and support during your apprenticeship journey. Some examples are International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Independent Electrical Contractors (IEC), and Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Anyway cant you(r friend) work both angles until something takes off? Apply to some unions / apprenticeships and dev jobs? Let the universe decide? Personally I think its a great idea. I wish I'd thought of it during my last job search.
• mywittyname 4y ago
  Probably not. My father is an electrician, and has been for over 30 years now. His body is falling apart, which makes it tough for him to work without an assistant, or in the summer due to the heat (heart issues). Standing around and/or driving all day is terrible for ones health, but working 10-12 hours a day is not conducive to exercising (or eating well). He pushed me into college when I worked with him as a youth. He straight up told me, "be an engineer, those guys make twice what I do for half the work." Also, an often ignored fact of trades is that recessions hit them hard. My dad had nearly no work for all of 2009 and the company he worked for nearly went bankrupt.
• vkou 4y ago
  Depends. Do you like dealing directly with customers? Customers who have unreasonable expectations of your trade? Other construction workers? Do you like working with your hands, at the cost of your long-term health? Do you like making a lot less money? If so, yeah, it's a great option.
• rootusrootus 4y ago
  > Why or why not? My first question would be -- how old are you? Skilled labor is still labor, and it is fairly normal for middle aged electricians, plumbers, etc, to have significant chronic injuries. A smart electrician, HVAC guy, plumber, etc, is moving into supervision or business management at that point and hiring new young technicians to do the physically hard work. > tech worker who might be made obsolete by AI My advice would be to level up and become an software engineer instead of a coder. Even then, I don't think coders are in any danger of being explicitly replaced by LLMs. Regurgitating plausible code, which sometimes even works, is useful but still definitely requires a human to decide how to leverage it. If you're not interested in software engineering (by that I mean all the non-coding parts, which really start to dominate the higher you go), and I can totally understand that, then maybe change your title to Prompt Engineer :).
  • whstl 4y ago
    I really like the distinction between engineers and coders. As someone who hires people (and having graduated as engineer), it is already extremely difficult to hire people who have an "engineering mindset", who know how things work deeply and would be able to make new stuff from scratch if needed. For "coders", who only know how to put a few libraries together and are allergic to novel stuff, I got stacks and stacks of resumés. Yeah, those will get replaced.