8 ms·

Climate Tech companies have lots of jobs, are not laying people off, have financial tailwinds behind them thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, and, crucially,

• shakabrah 4y ago
  > are not laying people off Hi there, software engineer here. I was laid off from a climate tech (solar) company in December ‘22. Bonus points for doing it a week out from christmas!
  • 71a54xd 4y ago
    I guess we can both become data-backed solar salesmen?
  • mbgerring 4y ago
    Sorry to hear that, hopefully you find another job soon. If you’re in the Bay Area I’d be happy to buy you lunch and chat with you about where you’re trying to go next.
• kneebonian 4y ago
  > have financial tailwinds behind them thanks the Inflation Reduction Act I'm just saying if your financing and backing has come to pass because of government fiat, it can just as easily be removed by government fiat.
  • mbgerring 4y ago
    My company’s revenue mostly comes from people paying for services, the IRA is mainly good for helping some of these new technologies reach economies of scale. Good luck out there!
• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > Top comment on this post right now is a dumb, dismissive joke. Is it fair to call it the top comment if it's the only comment? And downvoted, nonetheless. And while it was a joke, I actually think it makes a valid point. As an individual, I'm incredibly wary whenever I see these "Field X is going to explode with jobs!" announcements, because they analyses are usually quite simplistic. I mean, we were saying the same things about solar jobs 10 years ago, and there was a ton of excitement. That was then followed by tons of companies going bankrupt and jobs disappearing because they couldn't compete with "the China price". With globalization slowing down and decoupling I'm not saying that fate will repeat itself, but I still think some healthy skepticism is warranted.
  • mbgerring 4y ago
    The solar industry did explode with jobs ten years ago, and has kept growing since. The thing that didn’t work out were some high profile panel manufacturing plays, but the solar industry as a whole has grown and employs more people than the oil and gas industry. In fact, the “China price” is responsible for a lot of that growth, because it’s made the economics of solar irresistible in many places. More info on jobs and industry size: https://www.seia.org/solar-industry-research-data https://www.seia.org/solar-industry-research-data
    • 908B64B197 4y ago
      I can only hope with investments for fabs here in the US we can bring back production of solar panels. Would be great to stop importing cheap, inefficient panels from abroad and instead have out tax dollar subsidize a higher quality domestic product.
      • crote 4y ago
        Don't count on it. The fabs currently being invested in are designed for high-tech chips, they are completely unsuitable for solar panels. Solar panel factories are a completely different beast, and labor cost is probably the biggest factor when it comes to choosing a factory location. Cheap and inefficient panels are usually exactly what you want. You are rarely space or weight limited, so it is all about getting the highest power capacity for your money. Why spend twice as much for 10% more capacity when you can get 100% more capacity for the same money by simply placing more panels?
• hijinks 4y ago
  friend of mine owns a small roofing company that has almost 100% pivoted to solar installs and only does a new roof if the old roof needs to be replaced before panels can be put on. He has jobs booked out 8 months now. Its funny because he tells me his parents were so upset he started a roofing company and didn't go to college and now he makes more per year then most software engineers even at large tech companies. He also said he's having issues hiring dependable people even though he says he's offering a really good salary+benefits.
  • lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > He also said he's having issues hiring dependable people even though he says he's offering a really good salary+benefits. It is evidently not good enough. Can you share how much he is offering for back breaking outdoor labor that has a high likelihood of causing musculoskeletal healthcare problems by one’s 50s, and cannot screw around on HN during the day?
    • jacquesm 4y ago
      It was 'dependable', not 'in general'. That makes a big difference. Subcontractors or people working out of sight on installation work are difficult hires because you need to inspect the work after it has been done and that can be very tricky once it's all sewn up. It also requires people to be there on time and to not cause damage. Hiring for such roles is very difficult, typically you try a large number of people and you end up finding some fraction of that (not a very large fraction) that works out over the longer time. As for the effects of physical labor on the body: that is true for many industries and occupations. It certainly doesn't give solar a pass but this is not a problem that is exclusive to solar installations (though the risk of injury is high this is in part because the people that try to do the work aim to get it done as quickly as possible and safety be damned). Have a look at the building trades for small time contractors, the situation is quite comparable (especially the roofing part). But don't underestimate the wear and tear of any one of a large number of other 'blue collar' jobs on the body.
      • lotsofpulp 4y ago
• ecshafer 4y ago
  What percentage of Hacker News users are Software Developers? Climate Tech sounds great for a variety of engineers, but software jobs are going to be quite limited. Plus when you compare these more non-fungible industries where software gets paid really well, I imagine many of these climate tech jobs will be quite a hair cut for many devs.
  • mbgerring 4y ago
    No, software jobs in climate are not limited. Take a look at the job board at https://climatebase.org https://climatebase.org. There’s a lot of work to do, and a lot of it is software.
  • pvarangot 4y ago
    There's going to be a lot of jobs for developers when they start embedding ads into the solar panels and need to optimize distribution and engagement.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • einpoklum 4y ago
      Don't forget about when they embed micro-cameras and other sensors to track the clients activities and phone home to report about it :-)
  • kokanee 4y ago
    I am a software engineer who spent last summer interviewing at climate tech companies. I found that there are two categories of software jobs in climate tech: A) jobs building tools to support R&D or operations at climate hardware companies, and B) jobs building software that purports to add value to various aspects of the carbon offset economy. I personally am not interested in the latter, as the entire carbon credit system is more effective at corporate greenwashing while enabling the status quo than it is at reducing emissions. As a web developer, it was very hard to find opportunities in climate hardtech, especially ones that could come close to FAANG compensation. I did find what I was looking for, but can confirm that there aren't many opportunities like this.
• nonethewiser 4y ago
  Regulation isn’t a good moat. Solar panels are a commodity- it’s a race to the bottom. Solar looks like (and has been) the storybook case of a positive trend that makes for a poor investment.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    You could say the same thing about almost any mature technology though. Meanwhile there are incredible amounts of money being made in solar. A friend has a solar installation business, he's been hiring more people year after year and is doing very well for himself and his co-founders.
    • raspberry1337 4y ago
      Do you understand that solar as a economic investment, and the economics of one dude that install solars, are very different things?
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        What a strange question. Yes, of course I understand that. But the two, even though they are 'very different things' are also intricately related in that if the one doesn't work neither does the other.
        • raspberry1337 4y ago
          That's not true at all, just because one individual person can make a temporary, big profit in an industry, that does not mean that the industry itself is profitable. Industry has large investment costs and takes time to become profitable, sometimes it never does.
  • nostrademons 4y ago
    Regulation is a great moat. I think that many of the most visible parts of the solar value chain (the panels and the installers) are very competitive industries that are going to be poor investments. However, there's always some segment of the value chain that is condensed into a few technologically-advanced and capital-intensive companies. I think we'll see this with solar as well, and there will be trillion-dollar companies that come out of it.
• boringg 4y ago
  So climate tech is great and very important (have been in the industry for a long time) - it isn't a huge money maker. Margins are thin - companies are lean and historically you are competing against future cheaper prices (e.g. Solar). It's called the Solar coaster for a reason. Energy Storage assets have a 10 year life and are essentially arbitraging energy demand or providing grid services for the IESO. Hopefully the IRA can translate into a lot of productive asset growth in North America - at the very least we can translate the GDP / CO2e to be more efficient. It isn't clear that it will be a huge success but it is important goal to pursue. That said there are many humorless climate zealots out there that are problematic that get in the way of progress.
  • einpoklum 4y ago
    > it isn't a huge money maker. Margins are thin You mean, like most of the real economy? In which people produce stuff and provide the services everybody needs? ...
    • boringg 4y ago
      Probably accurate. Important to couch climate tech appropriately as opposed to hype it to the moon.
• shaburn 4y ago
  There is little chance these governments can finance this adoption rate while funding wars against parts of the world that will continue to flood the market with cheap fossil fuels as a result. Long term, technology will move away from fossil fuel but not with brute force fiat on weak tech and bad politics.
• xwdv 4y ago
  Agreed. Top comment is a joke… Despite the optimism, I expect the actual number of jobs to fall short of expectations.