Programming or Trades? - "Learn to code!" VS "Learn to weld!"

[Nostradumbass]

I would go trade if you're worried about stability. If AI replaces everything you still have a job & certain trades pay around the same as a lot of programming positions.

 

[Scale Smerch]

The harsh reality is that both have their issues and aren't the get quick rich schemes many still believe them to be. Both are infested by jeets/immigrants/illegals, both have far more interest in them than available jobs, and both have seen wage depression and degrading job security due to those aforementioned reasons. Trades are as reliant on personal networking as any software development job right now, and are as equally predicated on location for determining your monetary return. If it must be one or the other IMO go for the one you're more interested in since doing something you hate will burn you out to a degree overtime and job hunting never could.

I would go trade if you're worried about stability. If AI replaces everything you still have a job & certain trades pay around the same as a lot of programming positions.

Even the trades aren't as stable, at least depending on what specialty you're going for. For example carpentry where I'm at is a coin flip in whether you're chronically unemployed for months at a time given the limited builds coming out (before getting into immigrant firms undercutting local companies during contract bids), and plumbers and electricians are often cannibalizing among themselves due to the competition. The post-COVID venture investment collapse caused a lot of people to shift into the trades given the sudden lack of easy software jobs and we're now starting to see the result of that glut in the job market.

I also doubt AI will be replacing a lot of coding jobs as much as weeding out the bullshit ones. Basic stuff like documentation, testing, and initial project/feature scaffolding/bootstrapping are all areas where LLMs do fine, and are also areas where outsourcing (read: jeet) firms love to bloat the ranks - i.e. prime area to cut and move operations in house. The unfortunate part is these areas are also where interns and juniors often get a start (especially at larger companies), and far too many managers and suits are naively seeing AI as the means to let more senior developers complete these tasks at the same time as more business critical - and wholly AI-proof - work. It'll blow up in their face eventually, but as with all hype bubbles it takes time before investors start recognizing reality and force corporate change.

 

[Mr Macintosh]

To add to all of this, the coding force is overinflated anyway. The government tried to force more people to go into the computer world when most people, just like back in the day, could care less about sitting there debugging or autistically learning something for hours without eating much -- or maybe eating too much. It takes a certain someone to do programming, and I still believe only a low percentage of people born can do it right. Constantly I saw and hear of students continuously dropping out of programming classes at college. At some point, you gotta accept that programming requires a certain mindset. No average Karen or John or Tyrone can learn it.

My conclusion, actual programmers and system admins have little to worry about. They can always find work or a place to be useful cause some of them do it simply for the passion of it.

 

[FDR Hater]

My conclusion, actual programmers and system admins have little to worry about. They can always find work or a place to be useful cause some of them do it simply for the passion of it.

They only have to worry about competing with the Mughal horde of jeets et al. for the privilege of having their resume seen by an actual human being capable of discerning their talent. I swear I'd pay a year's salary for a fucking whiteboard interview. Actually that's better value than a Bachelor's degree now that I think about it.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I'm stuck in a situation where I can't go into trades due to my health (vision/hearing impairments, balance issues) and I don't have a STEM degree. Life's been a strange series of events. I've been trying to get myself hired but even entry level jobs have proven to wind up being hyper-competitive where I live. I do live with family and I'm willing to do anything that I can do.

I don't know if I do have aptitude for coding/programming. My degrees are all in English.

 

[Sebben Crudele II]

Without powerleveling, I have been at the modern development market rodeo for a long while now.

It's shit. It's a meatgrinder.

Do learn to code if you want to make your own tools for your own business. It has never been easier and cheaper to learn to program, especially for desktop usage. You have excellent material and exercises and sample programs and documentation for free or at minuscule fees. If you want to make an inventory management program for your little grocery shop you can absolutely do that and it will give you independence and save you a heap of money.

Don't rely on coding to feed you + give you money for something else, though. The wages might seem attractive from afar until you realize the amount of moronic sacrifices and dicks you need to suck in order to get to that level of salary. In the mean time, it will ruin your daily mood, your social life, your optimism, it will give you health problems other people with different occupations wouldn't develop, it will drain your willpower to do other things, including the ones that made you happy before (yes, it'll give you literal anhedonia), you might develop an addiction to cope with it all.
I'd like to think as corporate development as an analog of professional kitchen work.

I'm personally stuck here for now because changing careers takes a long time of juggling both things until you can make the full jump, but rest assured I have long lost my shiny, hopeful eyes.

Don't do it kiwifren.

 

[Jerk Sausage]

I've done both, and entered both basically the same way. Start at a company that is willing to pay you peanuts because you have no provable skills or resume. Learn on the job quickly and be reliable, and ask for help when stuck. If you're not compensated when you become more competent and have more responsibilities, move on to somewhere else that respects your now years of experience. See enough of the same problems over and over until you become a journeyman who can solve most of those problems. After doing that for many years, you've reached a level where you can do it for life, but not quite a master if all you did was learn on the job. That's where independent study or schooling come in; fill the gaps of knowledge with a broadened vocabulary and awareness of how to prevent problems and build competent systems, whether they're digital or physical structures/installations. Become a master engineer. Otherwise you're stuck at the level of monkey coder/tradesman for life.

Which is more satisfying? Trades. You can walk away from a finished project knowing that it could last a lifetime. Software has few wins. It's just solving problems that, at best, will last a few years. Sure you might make a simple API or database that runs quietly for a decade or so, but those are short projects. Software pays better upfront though, and the upfront costs are basically zero if you're reading this.

I've settled on coding since I've got way more time invested, but doing trades was a lot more mentally satisfying.

edit: though I should say, nepotism or networking are 1000% required for that entry point these days. Submitting a resume cold is a lottery. Find a uncle/dad/friend on a work crew or an aunt/church lady that has an office job and needs a developer.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I would go trade if you're worried about stability. If AI replaces everything you still have a job & certain trades pay around the same as a lot of programming positions.

Just got a new team member, dropping 60% in wage cause they decided her managerial position in agriculture wasn't worth keeping around. Decades of employment and complete devotion to availability and extra hours - gone. I know it's just one story, but having witnessed friends finish their education as electricians or finish their certification as truckers and still having to go years cause nobody wanted to hire them fresh.. it's pretty joever in terms of "free lifelong employment".

Likewise the tech bros getting headhunted before they even graduate? Long gone. They're back to fighting for an unpaid internship among pajeets aplenty all the same. There is no such thing as an easy way through life anymore. I've browsed a lot of payslip subreddits and you'll find people who can't spell making twice of what you're doing right now, if not more, and high-end PhDs making fuck all.

To have a career is a skill and often it's not much harder than having the drive to keep finding better options, but family, love and sickness comes in the way of that.