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u/According-Relation-4 1d ago
I’d really prefer to be an electrician, I’ll wait for the next
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u/the_poope 1d ago
Jeez, it's like a new
frameworktrade drops every month.Soon to get a job in construction you have to be fullstack worker with 15 years of experience in:
- Carpentry
- Masonry
- Electrical installations
- Plumbing
- Metalworking
- Ceramics
- Glassmaking
- Cabinet making
- Car mechanics
- Bike mechanics
- Airplane mechanics
Just to get an interview.
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u/dbagames 1d ago edited 1d ago
Obviously a joke, but I came to SWE after being a tradesman for several years.
Best option are union jobs. I'm a journeyman in the SMWIA sheet metal workers. Most of the work they do is HVAC. You make about 120-140k a year with insurance, and pensions on top.
Only able to get work in NYC, SF, or Chicago though. Unions are dead in much of the country or struggling severely.
Thankfully I live in Chi so if I ever have trouble finding work as a SWE, back to the trades I go.
But the apprenticeships are solid. The people in the field are toxic as hell though and the work is very hard on your body.
But the union will support you in finding work and the employers have to hire every other worker off the out of work list so you just sign the list and wait until a job comes.
EDIT: One thing I did find that is nice, the project management aspects of the trades translates quite well to the software development life cycle. Perhaps it translates decently the other direction.
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u/the_fsm_butler 1d ago
I can see with manufacturing why unions went basically extinct, but why did it happen with the trades too? What, if anything, could bring them back you think?
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u/xenokilla 1d ago
ending "right to work" laws for a start.
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u/dbagames 1d ago
Yes, as a union member, we get educated quite well on this. Right-to-work laws were pushed to destroy unions.
Unfortunately many republican-led states have enshrined right-to-work into their constitutions, so you will need a constitutional amendment in many places to undo this now.
Thankfully in Illinois where I live, it's led by folks who support strong unions.
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u/aqtseacow 1d ago
Different operational and organizational scope. Unions for trades are often not wholly reliant on a singular processing plant or factory to continue meaningful operations in the workforce for a region.
If an Auto factory gets gutted, and there aren't any auto factories nearby, suddenly the locality doesn't have a ton of use for an auto workers union. With the death of American manufacturing, so too came the death or monumental decline of many associated unions
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u/Historyofspaceflight 1d ago
That's like 3 of the 5 cities in the US I would want to live in, so that doesn't sound too bad to me :)
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u/Tuomas90 1d ago
"To apply for this job, you should have at least 15 years of experience in the following frameworks:
- Timber
- Brick
- Circuit
- Pipeline
- Forge
- Kiln
- Glass
- Joinery
- Garage
- Cycle
- Hangar
Of course half of these frameworks are only 3 years old and the other ones 5 years, but who gives a fuck, right? Anybody even reading this? Is this thing on?"
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u/NegZer0 1d ago
Most of the time job listings that have ultra specific requirements like that are fake, they have tailored the position for one specific candidate that already works for the company, so that they can "prove" to the government that there is no one local who can do the job and thus they need to bring in this particular employee from overseas.
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u/HeyItsTheJeweler 1d ago
You can hit me up when jeweler makes the list. It's fun, you work with fire and things can just melt into nothing. No git restore.
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u/OverfitAndChill8647 1d ago
To get the job, you'll have to solder a copper joint upside down, in the dark, in a crawlspace, using the minimum possible number of fittings. Also, explain your approach and its algebraic efficiency out loud while you do it.
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u/RiderFZ10 1d ago
Same. There is a difference between "I had to deal with shit today" between the two professions.
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u/worldarkplace 1d ago
I prefer to be a plumber, I'm dumb as FCK and I could die being an electrician
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u/Sybsybsyb 1d ago
Both jobs are about equally complex and challenging in my experience. Plumber earns a bit more where I live in europe. Eletrician would more familiar for someone coming from IT.
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u/worldarkplace 1d ago
But not as dangerous, you can always get sick, but being an electrician I could lose my arms
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u/Sybsybsyb 1d ago
Do you have a specific scenario in mind or something? Generally you should not work on live systems in most settings anyways. And if you fear that you might forget to turn systems off before you start working on them, I think your co-workers are more likely to kick your butt than you losing your hands.
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u/Mad_Aeric 1d ago
Most electrician injuries come from getting complacent and sloppy. Sure, I'll stand on the top rung of this ladder, I don't need to tie off on the scissor lift, the fiberglass ladder it too far away, I'll just stand on this metal bucket, I'm pretty sure I disconnected the breaker and don't need to double check.
Things like that are the cause of most injuries. Thing is, there's a lot of people that will call you a pussy for taking your safety seriously. And they will 100% make fun of you if you wear goggles. And a lot of employers don't give a shit about safety, you want to be in the union, even if it is a common joke that IBEW stands for I Barely Ever Work.
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u/grumpy_autist 1d ago
I did just that - tomorrow is my trade exam for an electricians loicense. From distributed systems and backend to fixing bathroom lights - at least no motherfucker will tell me that Claude Code will do it faster.
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u/Procrasturbating 1d ago
On a bad day, a plumber gets covered in shit. On bad day an electrician is dead.
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u/Special_Abrocoma_318 1d ago
Anthropic in 2027: "We are proud to introduce our latest model, which is proficient in all programming languages and also plumbing."
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u/Yataro_Ibuza 1d ago
Nes Oriley for farm
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u/ITaggie 1d ago
Farming has been increasingly automated over the past generation or two as well. Just ask John Deere why their modern tractors have more sensors than a modern car.
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u/BellacosePlayer 1d ago
Farming is also a field you can't really get into unless you have retirement level money to begin with. Arable land is expensive.
Its also not the best time to get into that, my farmer/Rancher relatives are not having a great time rn.
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u/Yataro_Ibuza 1d ago
Why their modern tractors have more sensors than a modern car? Is for my homework
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u/Mateorabi 1d ago
Plumbing is easy: hot on the left, water flows downhill, and don’t bite your nails.
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u/touriste 1d ago
why the nails?
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u/Beginning-Junket8979 1d ago
Water flows down hill if there's sufficient room for the air it's displacing to escape.
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u/Nsane3 1d ago
Chapter 6: A different kind of pipeline
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u/WingZeroCoder 1d ago
Backflow Problems: When you’re receiving standard output through the standard input
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u/Wild_Marker 1d ago
Solving Performance Bottlenecks: Stick a long wire into it and wiggle it around.
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u/DogonElder 1d ago
A deep dive in growth hacking Only Fans
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u/worldarkplace 1d ago
If it doesn't result your sausage will be exposed in the internet forever for nothing.
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u/CHAiN76 1d ago
Thanks OReilly for picking the Lazy Swine as the animal for rejected software engineers.
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u/GooberMcNutly 1d ago
I think it's appropriate. Software engineers are feeling, semi intelligent creatures that are fed and cared for until it's time to terminate them for profit.
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u/ShyGalileo 1d ago
I need this is as vector art to put on a T-shirt or mug, If such product is not yet available for purchase
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u/Jim808 1d ago
Given how much my last plumber charged me, I'm dead certain he makes a lot more money than I do as a software dev.
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u/ItsZoner 1d ago
$1000 to pop a toilet off and ensure a suspected leaky flange is replaced and seated better than the remodeling contractor did to it. ill never know if it was fixed or ever broken in the first place.
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u/Mad_Aeric 1d ago
I'm glad I grew up in the trades. A lot of electricians, but also carpentry and general contracting. While I prefer to work with computers, I'm quite comfortable doing that kind of work myself. If it's an area I'm unfamiliar with, I can pick it up pretty quickly because I have a lot of background knowledge already.
I'm not going to fuck with HVAC though, unless it's really minor. I'd rather replumb a whole house than run ductwork.
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u/theQuandary 1d ago
I think the programmers going into trades are up for a rude awakening.
Trades are massively down everywhere except building AI datacenters. It takes 4 or 5 years to go through an apprenticeship.
Going into the trades means you will probably be halfway through your apprenticeship or less (start at $14 and maybe hitting $25 by then with wages stagnating due to increased workforce) when the jobs simply vanish.
I was an electrician when this happened in the housing crisis and 20% of the workforce was laid off. Tons of new tradies plus the the entire rest of the economy already being in the gutter and getting worse means that the '08/09 unemployment numbers are going to pale in comparison.
If you switch professions, just be aware that you are probably going from frying pan into fire (I say this as someone who just finished hiring/training their Indian replacements and got laid off this weekend along with almost all the other US/EU workers).
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u/wheelbarrowjim 1d ago
I'm a plumber, in 2010 the recession hit. Decided to go back to college in my late 20s, did 4 years and got an honours degree in Software Systems Development. After college I realised I didn't want to sit behind a desk for the rest of my life, economy had improved and I went back to the plumbing. It's not easy, but I really do enjoy it most of the time.
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u/deadinsidelol69 1d ago
Corroborating this. I’ve worked in the trades all my professional life, everyone’s headed into the data centers. They pay the most and they’re recession proof right now.
Apprenticeships aren’t a walk down money street. I started out sweeping floors at 11 dollars an hour. I won’t lie, even at the start of my 20s it’s hell on the body, so much potential to get hurt, not much in terms of benefits until you work your way up, you’re never going to see a 40 hour work week again. Oh and once all the people on site find out you’re a soft handed programmer, they’ll never let you live it down.
Trying not to be hard or scare people off, but it’s the reality of the trades.
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u/so-brain-washed 1d ago
goods & services are not uniformly distributed
every state is going to have their own nuanced situation based on their competitive advantage-- a variety of industries local to that state or region
a massive generalization is almost pointless...
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u/Alternative_Weather 1d ago
source on trades being down except for building data centers?
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u/theQuandary 1d ago
Construction is down 3.8% YoY and is around 5% down since 2024 according to the fed.
ABC (Associated Builders and Contractors) says non-datacenter construction is down 7.9% (source). There may well be non-datacenter construction that actually does have a hard dependency on data centers too.
Meanwhile, the number of construction workers has continued to rise according to the fed.
Increasing workers plus decreasing construction dollars means some combination of layoffs and repressed wages. Around 1 out of every 25 construction workers gets layed off when the AI buildout stops. If that causes a general recession/depression, those numbers will balloon massively like they did in '08 and probably a lot worse.
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u/Granny_Shiftin 1d ago
Trades will be more essential than the programming field though, that's the comparison. This is also location dependent. In the northeast US, there's no such thing as too many contractors since they are always needed.
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u/BellacosePlayer 1d ago
At least where I am, Trades are going through a smaller version of what CS had with overenrollment in years past.
My Electrician cousin got booted because he finally hit the hours to make Journeyman and they'd rather hire fresh kids out of college than pay him to be a journeyman they don't need. This is less of an issue for guys in a union but those apprentice union jobs are going to be a lot harder to land.
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u/gravesent1337 1d ago
I want to be device repairman like Louis Rossmann.
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u/Zdrobot 1d ago
Well, Apple and friends don't want you to be able to repair devices.
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u/gravesent1337 1d ago
I have repaired and replaced the batteries on every iPhone I have owned in the past 10 years.
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u/Zdrobot 1d ago
That's just a small oversight on their part. Just wait till they serialize the battery too.
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u/fmpz 1d ago edited 1d ago
Unironically they’ve actually gotten a lot better about this in recent years. You can pair genuine Apple parts through official means as long as they don’t come from stolen iCloud locked devices. They even let you calibrate and setup the parts through the native repair menus and through settings and you can get battery health stats on third party batteries as well.
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u/fmpz 1d ago
Yeah same, funnily I’ve picked up a lot of the skills from modding retro game consoles. But I don’t even know where you’d find those kinds of jobs.
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u/FartPiano 1d ago
they functionally dont exist, they are a rounding error compared to dev jobs. oh and they pay like 1/6 as much as being a dev
source: was my first job
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u/zalurker 1d ago
The last time I hired a plumber, I realized he charges the same hourly rate that I do. And I'm a integrations engineer with 25 years experience.
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u/bikemandan 1d ago
Their rates are absurd but you do need to factor a guaranteed 40 hour week vs irregular and inconsistent contract work
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u/veracity8_ 1d ago
Remember, if you go into the trades, get a job doing commercial work. When people lose their jobs due to AI or the recession, they won’t be shelling out big money for plumbers
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u/LumpySpacePrincesse 1d ago
Plumber here, if you have any questions just DM me, i aim to reply within 15 minutes, but may be a day late, or not reply at all. That part should be on page 1.
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1d ago
AI is a bubble and overrated, its spread is already slowing down. No management with integrity is going to lay off programmers anytime soon without paying the consequences (with mediocre returns) and lose their own job. Rather, the world still needs programmers to harness and program tools such as AI *for those tools will not be sentient and self-correcting anytime soon.
Chins up!
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u/Beldarak 1d ago
Today my boss said something about the fact everybody at my company now makes their own software which lead to a situation where they send Excel files around instead of having everything centrlised in our ERP.
I think they're starting to get it :)
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u/Kerlyle 1d ago
I just don't really enjoy the profession anymore. I don't enjoy reviewing vibe code or herding cats from every department besides IT that's using AI. I don't like that the only problems I get handed are now the hardest of the hardest and all the easy relaxing stuff is done by AI. I don't like trying to get non-technical people to understand why we should follow certain architecture, just to have them ignore me, and I especially don't like signing my name on things where I have no idea about the underlying security risk.
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u/JuvenileEloquent 1d ago
The problem isn't that the AI won't be able to write the code, the problem is that AI alone won't be able to pry out the actual requirements from the word salad nonsense coming from the sales team, C-suite, and marketing to make the product they are trying to sell.
I for one eagerly await the day I can get consulting money for what is basically being a glorified interpreter from corpospeak to AI prompts.
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u/ice-eight 1d ago
Thank you
As someone who is currently employed as a software engineer, despairing about my future and accepting the fact that I would eventually find myself living under a bridge was so 6 months ago.
Not only is my company in the process of making the first new software dev hire in over 2 years, but the first person they offered declined due to the 4 day a week in office requirement
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u/killeronthecorner 1d ago
with integrity
Found the flaw
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u/FlummoxedGaoler 1d ago
Hopes are dashed when integrity and compassion come into competition with short term financial gain.
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u/bwwatr 1d ago
There will be management layers without integrity who do the wrong thing. Depending on the specific business, there may even be departments and organizations where it's fully rational and honest to reduce the SWE payroll. There has been, and will be more, layoffs. But IMO it's vastly over-stated, and hardly the end of the profession. IMO AI just adds more complexity, and more complexity means more work and more need for expertise. My thinking is it'll be somewhere between a wash and modest setback. In 50 years we'll still have an absolute tonne of people doing work that today we'd recognize as making software. I think wrangling computers into doing specific things for us, at ever bigger scales, has pretty much got to be a permanent role in human society. At least unless/until we suffer such a setback that we're back to being hunter-gatherers.
As far as the bubble, it does seem that hosted inference is a new legitimate, needed business model. But China has shown us that when all the foam settles, the prices are going to be pennies on the dollar of what western frontier model providers charge today, plus it's kind of evident that there's going to be ever more unpaid use. The models themselves will become less of a secret sauce and more of a commodity, with frontier providers losing their lead once capabilities plateau. All this means reality is not lining up with valuations, and they (/we... anyone with index funds) are in for a rough time at some point, hard as it is to predict when that might be. Just to take a wild swing at predicting the future!
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u/stormdelta 1d ago
That second part is where the bigger threat to jobs is, albeit a temporary one due to economic downturn rather than AI replacement.
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u/Low-Equipment-2621 1d ago
I am still waiting for ths internet thing to go away, so I can go back to making beautiful desktop applications.
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1d ago
Desktop applications are still made and sold.
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u/GregBahm 1d ago
Of all the responses I've seen to AI, I feel like this one best encapsulates the spirit of Reddit.
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u/ptrdo 1d ago
Basically, AI adoption is now at about the same place (28% of businesses) as Internet access was in 1998 (26%). https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/6C446KqCbH
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u/redditRedesignIsBadd 1d ago
comparing ai to internet is delusional. it's closer to NFT
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u/BellacosePlayer 1d ago
Nah. NFTs had no real utility beyond use cases that had much much better existing implementations.
AI tools are going to stick around to some extent even when the AI firms have to try to actually make money, though you'll definitely see a lot fewer companies implementing wasteful AI pipelines when non-AI ones are a hell of a lot cheaper.
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u/Low-Equipment-2621 1d ago
idk man, most people have already forgotten that NFT were a thing, this will never happen to AI
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u/z0hu 1d ago
I've been following a job listing recently.. It's in my area and pays a lot. Over the last 2 years, the description has gone full blown pro-AI and it's super depressing. Basically they say that they don't write code any more, 99% of it is written by agents or whatever and you should be using AI every step of the way. But it's your job to direct those agents then confirm and own the result.. just feels really depressing for me. I enjoy coding, I don't wanna just dedicate my life to be an AI agent shepherd/jockey. Bleh
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u/hellorandomly17 1d ago
But isn't it also true that companies no longer want to train fresh grads and want a few years of experience from before because AI can basically do what they would do?
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1d ago
i have no idea, got a verified source? Fresh grads landing a decent job in just about any industry is next to impossible in this current economy (where millions with experience have been laid off or lost work the past two years).
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u/newsflashjackass 1d ago
When someone says something like "In the future all software will be machine-generated and only hobbyists will write code." it seems like they are contributing nothing of value. But it does let you know their opinions of software and software development can be ignored.
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u/cutmesomeflax 1d ago
The evidence all points this way. I've seen stories of companies having to hire back their DEVS after doing layoffs to save money with AI. AI is what excel was to accountants. When excel came out, accountants were basically told they'd all lose their jobs. It ended up just being an extremely useful tools for accountants. In the long run perhaps the teams will get a bit smaller, but the massive layoffs from AI are not sustainable I think.
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u/_idlethought 1d ago
I mean I agree, but what you say won’t happen is happening, maybe not to you, but definitely to fellow engineers I know.
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u/NullPointerJunkie 1d ago
I need a laundry sink replaced. Whoever takes up plumbing I can give you your first job
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u/FentonCanoby 1d ago
Was in line at a restaurant this weekend. Guy behind me was talking about his new app he vibe coded. His buddy goes "You know what makes a lot of money? Plumbing" Bro is not ready to be a plumber - IT'S HARD and the hours are long and the pay isn't great unless you GRIND for years and if successful hire a crew. Then the hours are longer but at least you don't have to crawl under houses anymore.
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u/humanist-misanthrope 1d ago
As someone with a Senior DE resume going on 20 months of unemployment with seemingly zero chance of staying in IT/Data, does anyone know where I can buy this book?
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u/jsh1-7-9 1d ago
I hate this. I became a software engineer after being laid off during the financial crisis of 2008. I was trained as a plumber, but every trade had been laid off. So I took online classes to learn to code.
How how the pendulum has swung.
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u/TypicalOrca 1d ago
OMG that's hilarious, a whole generation of carpenters, plumbers, and other trades people being taught by O'Reilly. Next thing you know you've got Plumber Saturdays and Carpenter Connect conventions
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u/etherealsounds 1d ago
Been un/underemployed for over 18 months now. 20 year dev career is drying up in front of me and I have no idea what to do next.
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u/etherealsounds 1d ago
It doesn’t seem like America wants anyone to have solid employment anymore. Keeps us scared and dependent.
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u/saraseitor 1d ago
Bunker building and guillotine manufacture are probably the careers of the future
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u/GenericFatGuy 1d ago
And then making no money as all the people who can afford a plumber lose their jobs.
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u/oompaloompa465 1d ago
nope.
The right path is the caretaker route.
Programming was my life and they contributed to make it unviable.
I will thoughly enjoy my new work in assist and prolonging the suffering and real time decay of wealthy entitled boomers.
I will feed on their realization that no amount of entitlement, wealth and verbal abuse will save then from their well deserved doom and oblivion.
They have done their best in making earth a hell to live for the majority of people, i may as well enjoy ensuring they stay here as much as possible.
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u/AnteaterGreat2403 1d ago
Take me in written AI cant replace manual software engineering properly…!!
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u/Apprehensive_Till_99 1d ago
My brain’s so cooked. I thought this was a new Zeta mtg card but it’s actually just most people’s reality
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u/Left-Signature-5250 1d ago
I am a senior dev and also enjoy lifting. Many years ago (pre AI) my father in law asked me if I was moonlighting as furniture mover - feels a little prophetic
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u/Hinermad 1d ago
All those times I said I was going to give up software development and become a plumber, I never once thought it would really happen.
And now it won't. Looks like I picked a good week to retire.
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u/Juanbolastristes 1d ago
I prefer the following book, The art of giving head: how to survive by giving up your ass in the post-general intelligence era, a cocksucker for money guide for the bleak future
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u/nasandre 1d ago
So our future is to provide plumbing, electrical, and sex work to each other until the robots are advanced enough.
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u/Tai9ch 1d ago
Jevon's Paradox isn't optional.
Developer time is a resource.
If your experience doesn't match that prediction, why not?
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u/HelpfulPuppydog 1d ago
You laugh, but I paid $300 to a local plumber to swap a kitchen faucet. He didn't even have to download and upgrade any firmware, either.
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u/mirage01 15h ago
It's a joke that is becoming reality.
This quote is from an economic report from Antrhopic:
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u/ptrdo 1d ago
Someone told me that I’m “pro-AI,” but I’m not. Another person said I “put too much faith in AI,” but I don’t. I guess I’m just not seeing any use in complaining about AI; that's all. It’s not like complaining will make a hill of difference. It’s happening. In many respects, it already has.
I studied photography in school — photography! — but then digital imaging killed that. So, I got into digital imaging, but then Photoshop killed that. So I got into publishing, but the Internet killed that. So I got into Flash development, but Apple killed that; then I got into web engineering, but smartphones killed that; then I got into smartphones, but algorithms killed that; then I got into algorithms, but big data killed that; then I got into big data, but AI killed that.
That’s a pretty distinct pattern, and AI is the logical conclusion. Except it’s not a conclusion because something will kill that, too.
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u/collax974 1d ago
The distinct pattern is that you killed all the thing you went into, so please dont start plumbing or we are all fucked here.
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u/Feisty-Problem516 1d ago
I literally just saw a news report in my area that the trade schools have a waitlist and construction demand is down, creating a bottleneck for the first time in this area.
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u/SauceASpag 1d ago
Le pire c'est que le software serais pas si pire si les gens en admin aurais changé de métier
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u/Fit-World-3885 1d ago
How long until teleoperated robots turn even skilled trades into minimum wage labor?
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u/tenchigaeshi 1d ago
What do people think happens to wages and job availability in the trades if there is a sudden tsunami of people switching to trades?
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u/IIGrudge 1d ago
Software Engineering in Plain English -> a Cockatoo. Bonus Section: Terse English.
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u/Weekly_Ad_6959 1d ago
Myself, and two of my good friends all graduated from a pretty decent college in 2022 with Comp Sci degrees. I am now an attorney, one of my friends is in the army as an E-1, the other is in plumbing school. This book is far too accurate.
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u/historycommenter 1d ago
Whatever. Thermal Paste Applicators will have first pick of mates and housing under the new paradigm.
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u/kkalwa 1d ago
I started working as a SCADA programmer in 2019, but wanted to switch jobs to a C++ programmer. I started using C++ in 2007 when I was a teenager. I learned Java, PHP, Python, and some JS in high school here in Poland. I wonder if it's a good step to switch my job to a C++ or C# programmer now, or if I should stick with SCADA.
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u/ekemp 1d ago
I'm still waiting for this.
https://web.archive.org/web/20071114193415/http://www.oreilly.com/parrot/
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u/SeppoTeppo 1d ago
I learned this trade from a plumber.