[redleggedfrog]

Not me, but my buddy got out of software development and learned to be, as he describes it, "a bog standard electrician." He had money for trade school, and then apprenticed under an experienced electrician. Dude is in his 40's, so late career change. Makes double the money he did doing remote coding.

[ecshafer]

Certified electricians can make really good money, especially union. But that's really hard to believe. Is this somewhere like NYC or something that there is an edge. A remote software developer is typically in the $100-200k range in the US. I know union certified electricians in that range, but none in the $300-400k range.

[francisofascii]

There are plenty of developer gigs in the US with salaries less than $100k, or with contract hourly rates less than $50/hour. Especially if the job is remote or in a low COL area.

[lm28469]

Unless we only talk about big tech companies there are more devs under 100k than devs above 200k, for sure, not even close. 300k as a dev you're in the lucky top 10%

[DanielHB]

People would be surprised how much of the software world relies on low-pay PHP/wordpress developers. I know a few people who started their careers like that.

No-code and low-code solutions have been getting better so the demand for those jobs is drying up though, but there are still massive operations running on top of some wordpress server that people FTP files to.

[lesuorac]

Yeah straight up, SquareSpace is killing more jobs than LLMs.

[dumbledoren]

Every other thread in /r/wordpress is from people who want to get away from Wix or Squarespace because they started squeezing them for $$ for minor features like contact forms etc. When people start paying $20/month for a contact form, suddenly 'Wordpress org' (as they call self-hosted Wordpress) becomes very attractive.

[DanielHB]

That is a very spicy hot take, wasted on hackernews.

I agree though.

[closeparen]

BLS quantifies this. $100k is 25th percentile. $200k is 90th percentile nationally, median in Sunnyvale-San Jose-Santa Clara.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm

[mywittyname]

The best way to compare is to use BLS figures.

The median salary of an electrician in the USA is $62k. For a software developer, the median is $130k.

A top 10% electrician earns $110k. A top 10% software developer earns $210k.

In fact, even developers in the bottom 10% of software development out earn a median electrician.

[more_corn]

My buddy did this. Apprenticed to become a low voltage electrician. Runs Cat6 for office builds. He did it for the reduced stress. He’s a lot happier. He owns a home in SF on a single salary.

[DanielHB]

Man in highschool I interned as a technician for a school computer lab.

Never in my life do I want to run Cat6 cables around again. I was freaking 17 and already getting back aches from leaning down so often.

[knowitnone]

lots of missing information here. running cat6 can be done without highschool education. I highly doubt this is a lucrative job, no more than $25/hr.

[AceyMan]

> become a low voltage electrician

You must have missed that part.

I worked for an engineering firm that did low voltage design (Network / A-V). The people who installed our plans weren't just high school types, trust me.

[mywittyname]

Yeah, my father is an electrician who does industrial work (non-union, but co-owns his business) and I was out-earning him by the time I was 21. Even though he made some good investment decisions, such as owning the building his company leases, based on info from my mom, I have amassed 2x the net worth in half the time.

I think people often conflate "being a <trade>" with "owning a <trade> business." A W-2 electrician earns a median salary of $62k in the USA. A guy who runs a business as an electrician might bill out $250k a year for his work, but he'll have to pay expenses like insurance, vehicles, gas, tools/tec, FICA, taxes, rent, on call services, and probably salaries for his assistants (which may include an unpaid secret assistant like a spouse who coordinates appointments). So their take home isn't nearly that much.

[ecshafer]

This is much more in line with the electricians I know. Another part that can really mess with TC for tradesman, even union electricians, is that getting a solid 40-50 hours is difficult. They might have 60 hours of work one week, and 30 hours the next week. A union guy might not get stable 40 hour weeks until they are 40+ due to the way seniority works. High paying electrician gigs like a lineman or high voltage at a power plant often have to get there on huge amounts of OT during storms.

[Gooblebrai]

> Makes double the money he did doing remote coding.

Yes, but I presume at a high physical cost in the long-term? (I mean, more than the physical cost of sitting in a chair)

[itsoktocry]

>Yes, but I presume at a high physical cost in the long-term?

Why? Electricians aren't doing intense labour, and I'm 99% certain that being in a job where you move around a lot (as opposed to sitting at your desk) has long term health benefits, without even getting into carpal tunnel syndrome and other RSIs associated with being at a computer.

[mjthrowaway1]

I hire electricians regularly. Driving a grounding rod is physically demanding. Moving conduit and hoisting it overhead for long runs is demanding. Carrying tools around, mounting light fixtures…and this is for light commercial work. It’s definitely not easy on the body and why older electricians want to transition in to design and engineering as opposed to field work.

[itsoktocry]

These things are relatively physically demanding if your baseline is sitting at a desk.

But hammering a rod into the ground for 15 minutes, or holding some weight over your head, or carrying weight in your toolbag are not things that break your body down; they build your body up.

[DanielHB]

They do if you do the same type of motion over and over for years on end.

[jf22]

Nothing is more hacker news than somebody downplaying how physically demanding a trade is.

[Drunkfoowl]

I think the key here is the extra income. He doesn’t need to grind as a sparky he can be very selective.

I have seen it in other trades. My family is GC, we have retired biz folks doing cranes, excavators, and some light hand trades.

I personally am considering starting an arborist.

[georgeburdell]

I have a relative who’s a lifelong electrician, and now in his mid 60s he’s basically confined to a recliner unless he takes his pain pills. Twisting, turning, and kneeling takes its toll.

[brewtide]

Worked for a res. Electrician for 6 years. It is often a pretty decent physical gig: drilling holes, pulling wire for days, climbing up under over every book you can think of. Someone else mentioned ground rods (relatively infrequent but), digging trenches for conduit, pulling the wire into the conduit, making up thousands of wires in boxes again and again.

Bending a 200 amp service wire around in a panel is no light task.

As someone who has never been to a gym, but has grown up on a farm and lived a life of mostly trades, it reminds me of all I see written about the different types of working out and how gym can be so different from physical labors conditions where what you are doing may not be a giant lift, or a giant use of force, but you've got to be able to do it for hours a day, back to back to back, day after day.

Our perspectives delude us.

[dieselgate]

Always wondered if city folk would pay for a “construction” workout. Moving around lumber and handling a framing nailer and stuff.

[sno129]

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNxvUrWQ_Q

[lazypenguin]

If they want to have 6-8 hour gym sessions to simulate the real thing then sure.

[itsoktocry]

>Our perspectives delude us.

I'm not deluded at all. I spent a few of my younger years in the oil sands, which definitely convinced me that wasn't something I could or wanted to do forever.

But we seem to be calling anything other than "sitting at a desk doing knowledge work" physically demanding. Maybe it's me, but having physical elements of your job and the job being physically demanding are different things. And when you are out of shape, anything is demanding.

[yumraj]

Honestly I wonder if he’ll end up being healthier. Sitting in a chair has zero physical cost but very high health cost.

[jagtstronaut]

I’ve done some of my own electric work and the logic isn’t dissimilar to what we do. Just way less abstract, way slower, and way simpler. I found it kind of interesting.

[betaby]

> Makes double the money

Canada?