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So you think you could be an electrician?

456 points · 414 comments · zdw

  1. airbreather · · focus · HN ↗
    One point that most people miss is there are many different kinds of electricians who, often can't even do each other's jobs.

    There is the house wirer, the panel builder, automotive electrician, HV, marine, drilling, industrial, maintenance etc etc.

    Some kinds pay better, others yield work almost wherever you go, others lend themselves to starting your own business better.

    It is nowhere near as homogenous as often described.

    1. walrus01 · · focus · HN ↗
      In my experience, datacenter industrial electricians seem to take a dim view of the skills of residential specialists as guys who just spend all their time pulling romex, but it's sometimes a lot more complicated than that... Residential has to deal with individual home owners, house flippers, renovation GCs and weird change orders in a way that people working in more technically structure and high-budget environments don't.
      1. ocdtrekkie · · focus · HN ↗
        This is true in tech as well. Big Tech folks with figuratively infinite budgets believe they're all that, but they basically are incapable of understanding the day to day problems small organizations face, or develop the ability to jump between completely different fields of technical problems several times a day.

        Larger organizations come with more specialization and greater resources, but you will never find a jack of all trades there.

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