upvote
Industrial electricians have always been in the boom-bust cycle.

IBEW (Union electricians) have been doing really well this decade. Another option if you don't want to be a contractor or an Anthropic employee. But they've also gone years without enough work to go around.

Scroll down to this comment for a better discussion than I could give: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49098874

reply
On the other hand, the economy is going to be increasingly electrified. Demand is going to be there in some form.
reply
On a third hand, electricity is just movement of electrons.

While DC is driving electrons down the line, AC is basically just when you vibrate them around.

Anyway my point is the field (no pun intended) may change drastically in the increasingly electrified future. I'm personally excited for more wireless power in areas, and the concept of ambient energy - harvesting power out of the already vibrating electrons in the static in the air.

reply
Also, an electrician just doesn't pop into existence. You have to go through years of apprenticeship and union dues payments.
reply
I was in the IBEW when I was doing basic tech support for HawaiianTel 15 years ago... making $15/hr, union dues were nothing even at that wage and they rarely ever go up.

This cry of "OMG dues suck" is so stupid for what you get in return. But go ahead and buy more into republican propaganda.

reply
Yeah, working people should never sit across each other at a table and discuss mutually beneficial things. For the Epsteinth time, class unity is only for the upper classes.
reply
I wish I could follow people on HN. Because this is worth a follow:

"For the Epsteinth time, class unity is only for the upper classes"

reply
I wish I could block people on HN so I could stop seeing this armchair-reddit-activism.
reply
Very true, it is difficult to even find an opening for the training to start the process, the schools are limited and have short enrollment windows that are fiercely competitive (at least in California).
reply
I applied for an apprenticeship several years ago when I was testing the waters to rotate out of tech after covid. Tested into the highest percentile, had previous high voltage experience with OEMs, a mech eng degree, still ended up like 200 people deep in the queue. That was the end of that interest. You basically have to be friends or family with someone to get into IBEW.
reply
this is a bizarre timeline of reality where an ME degree gets you waitlisted for an electrician apprenticeship
reply
In the end I'm happy it turned out the way it did. I've had some great experiences since and stayed in tech. Plus that freed up a slot for one of the many early 20s kids that were trying to get in.
reply
Sure, but these also aren't professions that will disappear when data center demand goes down or will get automated away in the long term.

I’d go as far as to say that for someone in their teens electrician (or trades in general) is a more stable long term career path than software engineer.

reply
Both have boom and bust cycles. They are different cycles, but they are still cycles. I wouldn't call either more stable than the other.
reply
You'll always have manufacturing and construction. I've never heard of an electrician boom bust cycle. It's infrastructure. It's always in demand.
reply
I know several electricians and they all have been through cycles if they have been around for more than a decade. Things never drop down to zero though, so sometimes they see their buddies without a job while they are still working.
reply
Yeah, but you might still want to enter the field based on the aging of the current workforce. Seems likely to be a shortage of electricians over the next while.
reply
Construction is always boom and bust by nature. Anyone in the trades, if they have an opportunity the should just take it while it's there.
reply
I feel like we're entering an age of electrification so having training/education in a field related to electrics/electronics seems like a reasonable path for someone to take.
reply
I think that age started over 100 years ago.
reply
The conversion to all-electric homes is more recent, and hasn't even started in some places. Here in Canada, some jurisdictions require newly constructed houses and apartments to have electric heat and cooling (heat pump, with resistive heat as a backup), an electric dryer and stove, and an electric water heater (tank or tankless). Others jurisdictions are still using gas furnaces and gas-fired hot water tanks.
reply
All electric homes existed as far back as the 1960s. Gas heat was generally cheaper back then (heat pump? nobody has air conditioning then) so they were not common where it got cold. Even at that though, the difference in labor for an all electric house today vs the same house with gas appliances is minimal - you get larger wires to the stove, furnace and dryer, everything else is the same. (in the near future I expect to see wires for the EV as well, but not yet and in any case this is the same even if your other appliances are gas)
reply
I live in one of those all electric homes too, made in the 2000s. Doesn't change that a bust will dry up the work and homeowners won't fork over the money for something that has few benefits for their daily life and requires expensive changes to the house.

To add to this there are jurisdictions that will require you to still pay a small monthly fee to support the gas pipes if you cut off gas service.

It is really nice not having a gas bill and not requiring maintenance for gas appliances, but most people won't care if they lived with it for long enough.

The only case I see it working is in a disaster area or blighted areas where the builder decided to bulldoze and rebuild the houses. The southern California fires for example; the city gave priority to permits to houses that went all electric since the gas pipes were destroyed. Permitting and inspection is so much simpler with all electric.

reply
It's accelerating. Electrification of infrastructure and buildings is a huge growth area with big delays in projects due to lack of capacity.
reply
Probably better off than investing in any field where our output is bits.
reply
> The data center build out will always be very boom and bust, which would really suck to work in.

HVAC and electrical (e.g. UPSes) need somewhat regular maintenance, so once build-out is done, if you're with one of the OEMs, you'll probably have regular work babysitting the gear.

reply
Doesn't that average out to 165K / year? That's not so bad IMO!
reply
I'd imagine those 300K years they're not just working 40 hours a week, more like 70+ hours. Add higher taxes on those years and it becomes less attractive.
reply
Oooof. I pity the poor fool who has to pay taxes on their 300k annual salary.
reply
deleted
reply
If it was a predictable & reliable 300k, 30k, 300k, 30k, 300k, 30k pattern, then yes.

But if not...

reply
I imagine a Bernoulli pattern would work too
reply
Yeah, if not, it could be even more!
reply
It can also be less
reply
Isn’t the same with software?
reply
Is the Anthropoc data center buildout union ceritifed?
reply
I mean, no career is ever perfectly secure against future uncertainty (a few years ago I would've joked "... except prostitution", but even that seems threatened by AI these days). The question is a relative one: how stable is it compared to feasible alternatives? I could certainly see job losses and wage stagnation in software engineering being worse than those of electricians over the next 15 years.
reply