Comment by ryanjmo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanjmo | Hacker News Reader

I’m trying to find a job right now and it isn’t going well. I have my PhD in computer science and I’ve run my own bootstraped company before and took it to over a million in profit for a couple years. I want to find a job as a engineering manager or something similar, but the feedback I’m getting is I don’t have enough corporate experience for that type of job, because I’ve just been doing my own thing for so long. I could find a job as a programmer, but I really don’t want to. After running my own company, I just like management better. And I know I wouldn’t enjoy programming for someone else for 8 hours a day.

So, I’m currently starting a tech business, but it is just going to take a bit to get started and it may not work. So in the mean time, I’m going to work on starting a plumbing company. I live in an affluent community and I think I can get the plumbing business to $400k-$500 a year, with just myself and a van. I’m going to just hire a plumber to take calls with me until I get comfortable going on calls on my own. I apprenticed this fall with a plumber; I like the work way more than programming and got an idea of how much I could expect to make. Which is way more than I could make programming for someone.

Thinking back on it, as my PhD was finishing up, I was having trouble finding a job, which was one of the things that pushed me to start my own thing anyway.

So I guess not being able to find a job and starting my own thing is something I have done a few times now. It is way more motivating to start something when you have no other good choice.

What a curious career! Trades in general, and plumbing in particular, seem pretty lucrative, particularly where I am (Sydney - we've had a crazy property and construction boom). And the path to small business ownership is fairly well trodden.

I'd say most 'entrepreneurs' are probably in trades, we just don't just that word for some reason.

Nowadays trades are lucrative everywhere.

The existent low competition is mind boggling but the career change is not that easy for people coming from intelectual challenging careers. It feels like a 'downgrade'. For the typical HNer selling is the only challenge there.

It's funny it feels like a 'downgrade' as it is more lucrative. It is also really fun. You feel like a superhero when you show up at peoples house and rescue them from their problem (which if you are a plumber is often serious). I also noticed that we did a fair bit of almost counseling when we showed up at peoples houses, which also felt great. It got me out of the house and meeting people. To me it seems like a good noble career.

And let's not forget what Einstein said.. "If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances."

Upvote for Einstein quote.

BTW, Ryan Conway @ Digital Tradesman might be able to help out with a website for your new Plumbing Venture. Good guy, worth talking to > https://digitaltradesman.net/

I've been incredibly tempted to do an electricians apprenticeship, so it's cool to hear someone from an academic background that's actually done something similar and gone into a trade. My study was Electrical and Electronic Engineering so I imagine the career swap would be trivial, but it's a large time investment.

How did you find the time to do it? To become a licensed electrician in the UK apparently takes about 4 years, and I'd earn pittance until qualifying so that's the only thing stopping me currently. I assume plumber would be as similarly stringent.

I had a roommate who had both and EE degree and was a licensed electrician. He could get a high paying job with just a phone interview. All the more amazing because he was a felon who served five years for drug smuggling and would reveal that in the interview right off the bat.

In the US you can do "plumbing service" without a license. So that is any repair basically. You just can't do installation, so no new construction. However, there is plenty of business in service and I like the work better than installations.

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