Industrial Controls / Instrumentation Tech

Biggest downside is the field environments you can find yourself in. Depending on your industry you can be in some horribly smelly/disgusting facilities or dangling off catwalk way above ground trying to adjust calibration on some silly sensor. There's good ones though too.

I'm a Software Eng in the industry so I don't ever really have much for field duty, but I work with several coworkers who are able to get their hands dirty when we're doing a site install: wiring panels, tracing faults, installing/adjusting sensors.

But talking about pay scale is a bit iffy based on where you're at now. I don't make FAANG wages doing what I do, but I do make somewhere in the 80th+ percentile for my geographical location (Saskatchewan) so its all relative

I sort of went the other way. I started out as an Electrician, and over ~20 years have moved into Data Science (with many steps along the way).

I can't speak for the US, but for Australia, there are many hybrid roles. A few examples of systems include:

* Home Automation

* Industrial Systems (designing & programing factory control systems)

* Building Systems (designing and programing large building HAVC/Access Control systems)

My experiance has been that people who understand and design both physical and software systems can find well paying work. That said, the career path often convoluted and personal relationships with the right people are critical.