My experience as an electrician is that there's work available even for completely green newbies who don't know anything useful, and once you've worked for a few years and become a registered tradesman you're pretty much sorted for life.

I'm not sure where you're getting these anecdotes about poor pay, high risk of injury, short careers and unstable employment. Most of the guys I work with have had long careers (often with a single employer for 10-20 years) and haven't sustained any serious injuries. The ones who don't want to take on management roles get paid very well even though they're 'just' highly skilled tradesmen, and the ones who want to go further run their own companies and are doing very well for themselves.

Ironically, I actually terminated my career as a software developer because I was developing RSI and found the work rather unsatisfying (despite really enjoying programming work in general). Working as a tradesman has so far proven to be far more satisfying and far better for my health - plus it leaves me free to work on my own projects after hours rather than forcing me to leave them unfinished since I already spent a full day working inside.

> Ironically, I actually terminated my career as a software developer because I was developing RSI and found the work rather unsatisfying (despite really enjoying programming work in general). Working as a tradesman has so far proven to be far more satisfying and far better for my health - plus it leaves me free to work on my own projects after hours rather than forcing me to leave them unfinished since I already spent a full day working inside.

I'm not sure this is really that ironic. Sitting in a chair for 8-14+ hours a day, focusing 25" in front of your face, slouching, pushing your hands into an unnatural position and tweaking your ligaments and tendons, and being stressed about maintaining a level of production is exactly what I would prescribe for physical degeneration.

Throw poor nutrition and little to no exercise in the mix and it's amazing how atrophied the back muscles get. Constant headaches from misusing the trapeziuseseseses and other muscles around c7, lower back pain, pain between the shoulders, this is all the type of back pain that gets "blue collar" workers depending on various analgesics and narcotics.

The fact that it's preventable is especially worrisome, as it's just as hazardous as shorting live voltage down your arm. You're trained to be cognizant of the risks and developers are not.

The reason I consider it ironic in this context is that a number of people have claimed trade work is dangerous, yet the worst injury I've sustained during my career was when I wrote software for a living.

The worst case injuries are certainly worse - a switch room explosion which kills you and your colleagues on the spot is worse than RSI - but as you say we're trained to minimize those risks and most people will work their entire careers without major injury

Who do green newbies need to talk to for that kind of opportunity?

Years ago I applied with the local IBEW, earned very high marks on the written test and interview, and it took them YEARS* to call me back with an invitation to start the program. By then I had other things going on and couldn't take the opportunity.

At the time I had a feeling I wasn't approaching things in an optimal way, but I sure couldn't figure out how to create a more immediate opportunity.

*not hyperbole, it literally was years later.

The answer to that is probably 'whoever you need to to get the job', though that isn't a lot of help to most young guys who don't yet have enough professional experience to talk their way into work.

It's no different really to getting a job later on in life. If you do a lot of networking then jobs will fall into your lap seemingly without any effort, but if you don't have an introduction then you are probably going to have to do a lot of cold calling and respond to a lot of job applications before you get lucky.

As a new entrant to the work force your best bet is probably to get an intro from a parent or family friend, asking an acquaintance to take you on as a favour. If you can't do that then you either need to try your luck cold calling or learn to hustle

You might have been held back by your high test scores, believe it or not. When I first applied to start my apprenticeship the HR chap was very hesitant to give me a job purely because I had good grades and was currently working as a software developer. He didn't think I was the 'tradesman type' and that I might prefer an office job!

As a former electrician, I should mention that trade unions usually have their own forms of college as well, in the form of apprenticeships -- these vary from trade to trade, but at least within the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, you got access to very cheap, job-specific vocational education that combined classroom learning with on-the-job training, and graduated pay as you progress.

When I was doing it many years ago, in Memphis, TN, a first year apprentice made, basically minimum wage, or something close to it, but graduates of the program made an actual living wage, or a rate of something like $25 an hour.

Those rates have likely gone up, since I'm talking at least decade-and-a-half old numbers, but the notion that they don't pay well is a relative term. Compared to minimum wage, they pay extremely well, once one reaches a level akin to 'college-educated'.

The majority of my family are blue collar workers, in trades from electrical to HVAC to fiber optics, etc., and they're all doing well. They aren't rich by any metric, but they all have comfortable housing, adequate/reliable vehicles, ample food, and enough surplus that nobody's starving, and nobody's generally in more debt than their mortgage.

In today's economy, that is something worth mentioning. That there are 600,000 of these jobs[1] is baffling to me, and merits further research.

[1] - Potentially, I'd like to see how many of them match up to what I'm picturing, as I see the numbers in dispute, so it's possible that there are a few of these jobs, while the rest are far lower, I dunno.

Out of curiosity, what kind of benefits (health, retirement) do your family members in the trades typically have? What sort of job stability? Are they unionized?

The direct experience that I have is, as I mentioned somewhere, a decade-and-a-half old, but I was speaking of unionized work in the electrical trade.

As far as benefits go, they were indeed very good. As has been mentioned around here, these jobs tend to be somewhat more physically demanding than the average programming / desk jockey position, and the result of that was better than average health insurance. The insurance industry everywhere has changed a lot in the past decade, so I'd recommend doing your own research.

For perspective, my cousin got Lyme disease, and didn't catch it until well after he'd been symptomatic. He was a drummer in a band, had thick, long hair, and had a tick on his scalp that went unnoticed. When he first began acting erratically, his parents chalked it up to typical teenage rebellion. He drove a car into the house and didn't realize it, ran another car into a telephone pole, and basically got to 'late-stage' symptoms before it was inspected.

He spent months in the hospital, specialists were flown in, and ultimately, he was made better -- though later in life he's developed early arthritis, which is believed to have been caused by the Lyme. All totalled though, nobody was bankrupted by the medical treatment and cost of the rather excessive care involved.

As for job stability, there are indeed periods of boom and bust. Boom periods often involve working optional overtime, which is compensated as overtime -- nobody in a union works off the clock. When I was a member, I never had a day where I missed work due to lack of employment, but I know that it does happen. I can't speak for how frequently it is from experience, but the union hall makes an effort to keep everyone as employed as they're able. In an up economy, this likely means steady work, in a down economy, I don't know.

Anyway, if you have any other questions, feel free to email me (contact in my profile), and I'll answer what questions I'm able. The (again) disclaimer is that my experience is dated, and a lot has happened since then, but as most of my family back home are tradesmen, I can ask around for answers if need be.

>> If you really want to DIY a trade without a college degree, I'd recommend learning PHP or web design before I'd recommend trying to break into welding.

Isn't that have the exact same 'problem', where only high-skill developers are paid $40/hour and a beginner is going to have trouble finding work and when he does it will only pay $12/hour?

Not the same problem. Many of the skilled trades not only require an apprenticeship to learn, but also to be licensed to perform the work independently. Coding could probably use more of an apprenticeship path, but there is currently nothing preventing a coder from pursuing just about any type of job that they can talk their way into.

As a PHP developer with just an associates degree, I can tell you that my first coding job was in fact paying $13 / hr, but roughly two years later I had enough skills to freelance at twice the rate. It has only gone up since.

I think the GP was saying that the low end welding jobs have been automated out of existence; I don't think that's the case for low-end coding jobs.

> the low end welding jobs have been automated out of existence; I don't think that's the case for low-end coding jobs

I'm not so sure- it seems like times are pretty hard in the website business, which always seemed like the primary swimming pool for low end/beginning devs. Twitter + Tumblr can do a lot.

Why did you limit this learning to PHP? For the motivated individual, mastery of any of the "enterprise frameworks" would do (i.e. Django, Rails, Java EE). I will admit that some job openings (or maybe companies) are much pickier, but when I see postings for a candidate with a BS but MS preferred that ask for a full-stack Java EE expert with 2-3 years of experience, I have to laugh.

Sure, let me just see if Millie has the budget for a Rails app to run her blog with a paypal button selling beads, hand blown glass lampshades, random antiques, and beanie baby collection. Because I bet she can afford a wordpress skin and some plugins. Maybe I'll even talk her into letting me install woocommerce and I can learn about payment gateways while earning about 1800$

PHP is what your neighbors can pay for.