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I had a professor remark once (this is circa 2009) that we should all learn a highly skilled trade around advanced manufacturing because eventually offshoring w

I had a professor remark once (this is circa 2009) that we should all learn a highly skilled trade around advanced manufacturing because eventually offshoring will reverse itself and by your early 30s you'll be in a prime position to profit immensely off the re-shoring of advanced manufacturing equipment and processes Maybe he was right. I'm in my early 30s now, and I don't regret becoming a software engineer, but all the highly skilled tradesmen I've met in the last 5 years make at least what I do, often more, and have the benefit of actually owning their own businesses or real, meaningful slices of other ones. I'll boldly admit I don't think I would like over physical labor and I do wonder about the toll of it long term, but they make a killing, especially the ones willing to travel all over the US. Granted, the highest earner I know has both a degree in CS and Industrial Engineering, and goes all over the place working with industrial robotics and makes piles of money doing it. More than elite SV companies in the last 3 years, IIRC, if you discount the stock based compensation package (simply salary to salary comparisons) its north of 300K. And arguably better retirement benefits, I think 12% goes to the 401K and they get bonuses every quarter right now. Well invested I bet he'd come out ahead. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the company though. EDIT: forgot to mention the folks making tons of money on the DoD now starting to require things made in the USA and sourced raw materials from either inside the US or from friendly approved countries from the last few years either, and I don't think that's going away any time soon. They've in the last 2-3 years started paying lots and lots of money to get suppliers that are US based and source their raw material from friendly nations only, and they pay alot of money to make it worth while.

nojvek 3y ago
I really envy anyone working in Industrial Robotics. It's such a fascinating field. Automating physical things is so much more rewarding than automating digital things.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Maybe not surprisingly, the real money in this field is in maintenance and ensuring uptime. The robots are cool to develop too but its really hard to get a job doing that directly unless you're a startup with funding from a VC or have an incredibly good resume, but there is a cottage industry of people (businesses or business units usually) that make lots of money maintaining deployed fleets and developing patches / augmentations for existing robotics. I think its hard to break into in some respects, compared to other fields (you need some certifications iirc in addition to a degree) but my limited, anecdotal exposure suggests its quite interesting and lucrative. That said, my sample size is small, and on the other end of the spectrum, I know a few folks who maintain complex CNC equipment and develop software for it (using a language I don't recongize, I think its proprietary) and while they make good money, its not better than you can make as a senior engineer at a reputable place as a web developer, for example.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Maybe it's different where you live, but here in California you don't need a degree to do industrial robotics. It certainly doesn't hurt, but unless you're in controls people aren't too picky. You would make more in webdev or ML though.
    - no_wizard 3y ago
      Not all of industrial robotics, but what they do, which is maintain and develop software for robotics in critical settings and oversee maintenance related to, I believe did, or at the very least, they are highly incentivized to get them after getting hired. The one outlier example I gave is specifically tailored for medical equipment.
- throw9away6 3y ago
  Meh Pay is better in programming. Fun fields part peanuts
- snerbles 3y ago
  Industrial controls engineering was a ton of fun, and indeed more rewarding. But the pay was nowhere near that of a software dev job in SV.
- knewter 3y ago
  My dad ran a robotics engineering company after being vp of engineering for a company Siemens bought that did factory automation (conveyors first, then of course robots). Playing doom in his office while he overworked into the night is when I learned about computer networking mostly...I follow in his footsteps in the overwork) Anyway, in automotive manufacturing right now frequently the industrial automation firm is told they will be paid net 240. This is insanity. It leads to unnecessarily long projects as the firms have to figure out how to cash flow enormous expenses. In the meantime, inexperienced competitors regularly fixed bid quote something that cannot be safely and timely built for the quoted budget, ignoring profit. They win the project and they're worn down to a nub and either go under or deliver to avoid being sued into oblivion, so it's a horrific race to the bottom. The latter behaviour I witness regularly in the software consultancy industry and it's a bothersome thing.
- danny_codes 3y ago
  You can get into the field! It's growing fast. There is a ton of pure SW involved.
- jwar767 3y ago
  It’s fun when you’re working for the robot manufacturers but traditional software engineering is a lot funner to me. Robots are either programmed with a proprietary language that abstracts anything interesting away or with a joystick. PLC programming is funner but the tooling is still garbage and most of the fun things are also abstracted away unless you are doing servo motion. Things like ROS are typically used in industry. Worked in factory automation for a few years until I realized that software paid better and had better tools.
nosefrog 3y ago
FWIW, re: comparing to "elite SV company" compensation, it doesn't really make sense to discount stock, since stock at the "elite" SV companies is effectively cash, because they're public. Unless you mean that your friend is also making a significant amount of stock, but since you can't value it (e.g. the company is private), it's harder to compare to the "elite" SV companies. I know Google was handing out $385k total compensation offers ($200k salary, $150k stock, $35k annual bonus) in 2020 to senior software engineers, and Google's 401k matching is 50%.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Two things I want to point out: First is Google is an outlier, even among Silicon Valley. So is Meta. They both are well known for very high total compensation. I also specifically didn't say FAANG for this reason. There's other high compensation places that I would bucket in as top 5% that aren't in the acronym (Microsoft comes to mind) which very good TC packages. Second is I removed stock because stock is hugely outsized in value for tech companies, and most of these jobs aren't going to have RSUs. If you compare salary to salary however, its a better metric. I know an industrial HVAC specialist that pulls in north of 300K in just salary, and has great retirement benefits. In fact, better than you might see even at say, Apple on both fronts, for most people, and importantly, they're young (7 years my junior). One thing alot of the highest paying trade jobs have in common though, is travel travel travel. The folks who work only local jobs do well enough, but not near the gangbuster rates the travel folks are pulling in. Source: I have friends and extended family who are all trades people. Plumbers, carpenters, masons etc. as well as a few who work in other engineering disciplines (like industrial engineering & robotics). Blessed with a large enough extended family that I think I get a decent idea of whats out there
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    I don't know anyone in the trades who is going to pull north of 200k unless they own the business. In which case my Ex's father comes to mind; he owned a plumbing business and had 4-5 vans out servicing clients. He made 300+, and busted his ass to get it. Most of his guys were in the 60-85k range. HVAC at 300k is an absolute outlier, and there are going to be some serious tradeoffs in terms of how brutal that's going to be on your body. Gonna be some long, hot days.
gumballindie 3y ago
> the highly skilled tradesmen I've met in the last 5 years make at least what I do, often more, and have the benefit of actually owning their own businesses or real, meaningful slices of other ones. _This_. A lot of software developers think they are the only high earners out there. Skilled tradesmen are making a killing in europe as well. And unlike software engineers, the path to starting an actual business is much shorter and the growth potential much higher.
- maxilevi 3y ago
  Starting a software business as a SWE requires almost no investment
  - lumost 3y ago
    Perhaps, but scaling one requires extreme investment. Recent startups are raising close to a billion to take on competitive markets.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - maxilevi 3y ago
      Sure, but I doubt your average tradesman starting a business is targeting billion dollar markets. Scaling software to the same level of revenue as a trade business is as easy if not easier. For one you don’t need that many employees
      - BetaDeltaAlpha 3y ago
        Scaling software to the same level of revenue as a trade business is a sure way to get run over by the VC backed competition.
        bruce511 3y ago
        I get that when you live in a forest all you see are trees, but 99% of software companies are not in rather VC markets, nor have VC competitors. There are massive problems that come with "scale" - problems most people don't want. The VC model is all about the exit, whereas, again, 90-something-% of businesses, trades included, are focused on long-term sustainability, not on the "exit". Sure, the VC space us very visible, very "loud", gets a lot of press, and so on. And of course 100% of non-vc owners don't get to be billionaires, but to VC world is a tiny sliver of the software world.
atleastoptimal 3y ago
It doesn't matter. In 5-10 years all those jobs will be entirely automated by autonomous robotics.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  These are jobs that either aren't even yet on the spectrum of automation (carpentry, plumbers, industrial HVAC & electricians) or as I referenced in more detail, folks who work on the robotics that "replace the jobs" or are otherwise augmenting the spectrum (in the outlier instance, its medical industrial systems stuff. I think they make surgical robots) Unless the robots are either going to become good at swinging hammers or designing, maintaining, and install themselves, I think these are some of the safest jobs you can have, if there is such a thing
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    Plumbers and electricians will be absolutely last jobs that are automated. We'll automate CEOs long before them.
- failbuffer 3y ago
  Source? Seems like an Elon Musk- or Fusion research proposal-type timeframe
  - wernercd 3y ago
    Don't need a source... in 12 years climate change is going to kill us all anyways. Spoken by another Oracle of Delphi.
- distortionfield 3y ago
  I highly doubt this and even if it becomes legitimately true, people have been claiming we’re all being replaced out of jobs for the last 2000 years. It’s not happening.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  “By your command…”
Aunche 3y ago
>have the benefit of actually owning their own businesses This sounds like a business is just something that happens to fall on your lap while you're fixing a pipe rather than something that you build with your blood sweat and tears. Most tradespeople make nowhere close to 300k. Their success is credited to their hard work, not their happening to choose the trades.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  I should have addressed this more sufficiently, but there are a couple different things I'm saying here so let me clarify: One is being the trades is rewarding, yes not all bring in 300K+, but I don't know a single trades person, many often my junior, who don't bring in a good income pretty comparable to software engineers at non FAANG companies make (typically 150K+) and I don't think any of them are carrying high debt student loans (many states even pay for trade education outright) and their benefits can't be beat, esp. if they're union. The second is that there are trade businesses that do earn, esp. right now in the industrial sector, but they all have a singular thing in common: Travel Travel Travel. thats the name of the game. They're gone alot. For instance, my cousin is an industrial electrician, and works on windmills. He travels all over the midwest and Texas to do the work, is rewarded quite handsomely for the privilege, but is gone over half the year. Has no wife or kids currently, so there is that, but its taxing. Other trades folks I know have businesses and do pull in alot, but the "grind" can be very real at times, but I've been told that its rewarding, because its yours at the end of the day Third is in a specialized sliver of robotics / industrial systems, you can make a fortune, but its not so outsized across the board. Medical systems are a big one, robotics are being really big in surgeries, and there's alot of money to be made there
  - EFreethought 3y ago
    WRT travel: I think if you are willing to travel, you can make a lot in any industry (except maybe being a truck driver).
  - runsWphotons 3y ago
    I dont know what trades you have in mind, other than that you mentioned industrial robotics, but most trades people without college are not making anywhere close to 150k. The really successful ones do though, and maybe thats who you are talking to.
gsatic 3y ago
I dont get it. Why did he say it will reverse? Do you think other countries arent offering freebies or a high skilled labor at cheaper rates than the US? The US has outsourced so much, this cash dump is just going to head straight into the pockets of cronies who will then say 2-5 years they need more.

nojvek 3y ago

I really envy anyone working in Industrial Robotics. It's such a fascinating field. Automating physical things is so much more rewarding than automating digital things.

no_wizard 3y ago
Maybe not surprisingly, the real money in this field is in maintenance and ensuring uptime. The robots are cool to develop too but its really hard to get a job doing that directly unless you're a startup with funding from a VC or have an incredibly good resume, but there is a cottage industry of people (businesses or business units usually) that make lots of money maintaining deployed fleets and developing patches / augmentations for existing robotics. I think its hard to break into in some respects, compared to other fields (you need some certifications iirc in addition to a degree) but my limited, anecdotal exposure suggests its quite interesting and lucrative. That said, my sample size is small, and on the other end of the spectrum, I know a few folks who maintain complex CNC equipment and develop software for it (using a language I don't recongize, I think its proprietary) and while they make good money, its not better than you can make as a senior engineer at a reputable place as a web developer, for example.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Maybe it's different where you live, but here in California you don't need a degree to do industrial robotics. It certainly doesn't hurt, but unless you're in controls people aren't too picky. You would make more in webdev or ML though.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    Not all of industrial robotics, but what they do, which is maintain and develop software for robotics in critical settings and oversee maintenance related to, I believe did, or at the very least, they are highly incentivized to get them after getting hired. The one outlier example I gave is specifically tailored for medical equipment.
throw9away6 3y ago
Meh Pay is better in programming. Fun fields part peanuts
snerbles 3y ago
Industrial controls engineering was a ton of fun, and indeed more rewarding. But the pay was nowhere near that of a software dev job in SV.
knewter 3y ago
My dad ran a robotics engineering company after being vp of engineering for a company Siemens bought that did factory automation (conveyors first, then of course robots). Playing doom in his office while he overworked into the night is when I learned about computer networking mostly...I follow in his footsteps in the overwork) Anyway, in automotive manufacturing right now frequently the industrial automation firm is told they will be paid net 240. This is insanity. It leads to unnecessarily long projects as the firms have to figure out how to cash flow enormous expenses. In the meantime, inexperienced competitors regularly fixed bid quote something that cannot be safely and timely built for the quoted budget, ignoring profit. They win the project and they're worn down to a nub and either go under or deliver to avoid being sued into oblivion, so it's a horrific race to the bottom. The latter behaviour I witness regularly in the software consultancy industry and it's a bothersome thing.
danny_codes 3y ago
You can get into the field! It's growing fast. There is a ton of pure SW involved.
jwar767 3y ago
It’s fun when you’re working for the robot manufacturers but traditional software engineering is a lot funner to me. Robots are either programmed with a proprietary language that abstracts anything interesting away or with a joystick. PLC programming is funner but the tooling is still garbage and most of the fun things are also abstracted away unless you are doing servo motion. Things like ROS are typically used in industry. Worked in factory automation for a few years until I realized that software paid better and had better tools.

nosefrog 3y ago

FWIW, re: comparing to "elite SV company" compensation, it doesn't really make sense to discount stock, since stock at the "elite" SV companies is effectively cash, because they're public. Unless you mean that your friend is also making a significant amount of stock, but since you can't value it (e.g. the company is private), it's harder to compare to the "elite" SV companies. I know Google was handing out $385k total compensation offers ($200k salary, $150k stock, $35k annual bonus) in 2020 to senior software engineers, and Google's 401k matching is 50%.

no_wizard 3y ago
Two things I want to point out: First is Google is an outlier, even among Silicon Valley. So is Meta. They both are well known for very high total compensation. I also specifically didn't say FAANG for this reason. There's other high compensation places that I would bucket in as top 5% that aren't in the acronym (Microsoft comes to mind) which very good TC packages. Second is I removed stock because stock is hugely outsized in value for tech companies, and most of these jobs aren't going to have RSUs. If you compare salary to salary however, its a better metric. I know an industrial HVAC specialist that pulls in north of 300K in just salary, and has great retirement benefits. In fact, better than you might see even at say, Apple on both fronts, for most people, and importantly, they're young (7 years my junior). One thing alot of the highest paying trade jobs have in common though, is travel travel travel. The folks who work only local jobs do well enough, but not near the gangbuster rates the travel folks are pulling in. Source: I have friends and extended family who are all trades people. Plumbers, carpenters, masons etc. as well as a few who work in other engineering disciplines (like industrial engineering & robotics). Blessed with a large enough extended family that I think I get a decent idea of whats out there
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  I don't know anyone in the trades who is going to pull north of 200k unless they own the business. In which case my Ex's father comes to mind; he owned a plumbing business and had 4-5 vans out servicing clients. He made 300+, and busted his ass to get it. Most of his guys were in the 60-85k range. HVAC at 300k is an absolute outlier, and there are going to be some serious tradeoffs in terms of how brutal that's going to be on your body. Gonna be some long, hot days.

gumballindie 3y ago

> the highly skilled tradesmen I've met in the last 5 years make at least what I do, often more, and have the benefit of actually owning their own businesses or real, meaningful slices of other ones. _This_. A lot of software developers think they are the only high earners out there. Skilled tradesmen are making a killing in europe as well. And unlike software engineers, the path to starting an actual business is much shorter and the growth potential much higher.

maxilevi 3y ago
Starting a software business as a SWE requires almost no investment
- lumost 3y ago
  Perhaps, but scaling one requires extreme investment. Recent startups are raising close to a billion to take on competitive markets.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - maxilevi 3y ago
    Sure, but I doubt your average tradesman starting a business is targeting billion dollar markets. Scaling software to the same level of revenue as a trade business is as easy if not easier. For one you don’t need that many employees
    - BetaDeltaAlpha 3y ago
      Scaling software to the same level of revenue as a trade business is a sure way to get run over by the VC backed competition.
      - bruce511 3y ago
        I get that when you live in a forest all you see are trees, but 99% of software companies are not in rather VC markets, nor have VC competitors. There are massive problems that come with "scale" - problems most people don't want. The VC model is all about the exit, whereas, again, 90-something-% of businesses, trades included, are focused on long-term sustainability, not on the "exit". Sure, the VC space us very visible, very "loud", gets a lot of press, and so on. And of course 100% of non-vc owners don't get to be billionaires, but to VC world is a tiny sliver of the software world.

atleastoptimal 3y ago

It doesn't matter. In 5-10 years all those jobs will be entirely automated by autonomous robotics.

no_wizard 3y ago
These are jobs that either aren't even yet on the spectrum of automation (carpentry, plumbers, industrial HVAC & electricians) or as I referenced in more detail, folks who work on the robotics that "replace the jobs" or are otherwise augmenting the spectrum (in the outlier instance, its medical industrial systems stuff. I think they make surgical robots) Unless the robots are either going to become good at swinging hammers or designing, maintaining, and install themselves, I think these are some of the safest jobs you can have, if there is such a thing
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  Plumbers and electricians will be absolutely last jobs that are automated. We'll automate CEOs long before them.
failbuffer 3y ago
Source? Seems like an Elon Musk- or Fusion research proposal-type timeframe
- wernercd 3y ago
  Don't need a source... in 12 years climate change is going to kill us all anyways. Spoken by another Oracle of Delphi.
distortionfield 3y ago
I highly doubt this and even if it becomes legitimately true, people have been claiming we’re all being replaced out of jobs for the last 2000 years. It’s not happening.
mixmastamyk 3y ago
“By your command…”

Aunche 3y ago

>have the benefit of actually owning their own businesses This sounds like a business is just something that happens to fall on your lap while you're fixing a pipe rather than something that you build with your blood sweat and tears. Most tradespeople make nowhere close to 300k. Their success is credited to their hard work, not their happening to choose the trades.

no_wizard 3y ago
I should have addressed this more sufficiently, but there are a couple different things I'm saying here so let me clarify: One is being the trades is rewarding, yes not all bring in 300K+, but I don't know a single trades person, many often my junior, who don't bring in a good income pretty comparable to software engineers at non FAANG companies make (typically 150K+) and I don't think any of them are carrying high debt student loans (many states even pay for trade education outright) and their benefits can't be beat, esp. if they're union. The second is that there are trade businesses that do earn, esp. right now in the industrial sector, but they all have a singular thing in common: Travel Travel Travel. thats the name of the game. They're gone alot. For instance, my cousin is an industrial electrician, and works on windmills. He travels all over the midwest and Texas to do the work, is rewarded quite handsomely for the privilege, but is gone over half the year. Has no wife or kids currently, so there is that, but its taxing. Other trades folks I know have businesses and do pull in alot, but the "grind" can be very real at times, but I've been told that its rewarding, because its yours at the end of the day Third is in a specialized sliver of robotics / industrial systems, you can make a fortune, but its not so outsized across the board. Medical systems are a big one, robotics are being really big in surgeries, and there's alot of money to be made there
- EFreethought 3y ago
  WRT travel: I think if you are willing to travel, you can make a lot in any industry (except maybe being a truck driver).
- runsWphotons 3y ago
  I dont know what trades you have in mind, other than that you mentioned industrial robotics, but most trades people without college are not making anywhere close to 150k. The really successful ones do though, and maybe thats who you are talking to.

gsatic 3y ago

I dont get it. Why did he say it will reverse? Do you think other countries arent offering freebies or a high skilled labor at cheaper rates than the US? The US has outsourced so much, this cash dump is just going to head straight into the pockets of cronies who will then say 2-5 years they need more.