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Comment by akiselev | Hacker News Reader

That really depends on what you mean by "tech worker" but moving from knowledge work to trade work rarely works out unless you're already a master craftsman and just switching to an artisan business full time. The salaries are significantly lower, to the point where 90th percentile electricians often make less than 10th percentile engineers [1]. It is a physically demanding job that will lead to health issues and is no more immune to psychologically abusive management than tech with added life-or-death liability.

Don't confuse owning a business that hires its electricians to customers with actually being an electrician. The former is very lucrative, the latter much less so. It takes many brutal years to get from the latter to the former.

[1] As opposed to QA, customer service, etc, which are more comparable hence the "tech worker" caveat

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90% percentile electricians earn $100k average. 10th percentile software developers make $65k average.

There's also a relevant bias. The BLS does not adjust their wage percentiles to local cost of living/taxes. Software development jobs tend to be concentrated in high cost, high tax, high wage regions. By contrast tradesmen the demand for tradesmen is the same (per capita) just about everywhere. This bias makes the numbers difficult to compare. Suffice to say trades earn more in real terms, and software engineers earn less in real terms.

Electrician - https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472111.htm

Software Developer - https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm

Many electricians are working on 1099s, so you have to account for the extra payroll taxes they have to pay. And the higher electrician wages generally are in the same high cost of living places were SWEs make lots of money also.

This is very much a US perspective. In the UK for example, software engineering is nothing special with regards to compensation and trades can in fact yield more.

well the post as a whole is a US perspective: "America Is Trying to Electrify..."

> The salaries are significantly lower, to the point where 90th percentile electricians often make less than 10th percentile engineers [1]

Do you have a source for this? How much of that derives from tech workers generally living in high COL areas and needing higher salaries, while electricians are distributed throughout the land at all COL?

I have no doubt that high-earning engineers outearn high-earning electricians, but the assumption about this disparity seems suspect to me, without a source to back it up.

The 90/10 number is definitely biased towards California, but the national numbers really aren't that better. The 75th percentile for electricians is $77,350 [1] and the 25th percentile for developers is $90,870 [2] so the overall number is probably closer to 80/20 or even 85/15.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472111.htm

[2] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm

Thanks for the links! Interesting to compare and contrast locations with this in mind.

In Indiana, seems 75th percentile electricians earn about the same as 25th percentile software engineers. In Nebraska, it's 90th electricians and ~35th software engineers. A lot to take into consideration, and a wider gap then I expected in non-tech hubs.

A bit of informal research suggests that the median software engineer earns 90-120K in the US. This might be slightly outdated. Due to my position, I have visibility for the salary of many software developers at my company (mid-size, about 5000 employees), and that's not far off. It might be low by 10-15K. We have developers across the US.

The same informal research suggests a pretty consistent 60K or so for journeyman electricians. The range is tighter because skilled trade wages are subject to more regulation. Based on my knowledge of the Oregon & Washington prevaling wage rates (my wife works in accounting and has several small business electricians as customers), 60K does sound about right. Though as an hourly worker, it is not uncommon for them to sign up for more hours to push their yearly compensation above 100K.

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