Raising chickens in a rural area was something a part of my daily life. Moving into the city and jumping into coding, I have to admit: The same determination and hard work that drives rural Americans to success is the exact same I've seen in successful developers.
If you’ve never heard of this term, jobs that require manual labor are often called “blue collar,” and it’s been called this since 1924. These jobs can mainly be broken down into two categories: Unskilled, such as mining and warehouse, and Skilled, such as electricians and welders. Unskilled and skilled work blue-collar has been a major driving engine in the U.S. economy, and skilled blue-collar spurred the growth of the middle class.
The mindset we use when approaching a certain skill greatly impacts how fast or slow we might grow, or even the quality of the final output of that product. This mindset can be of efficiency, growth, quality, or whatever value that might drive you and that trade. I draw the resemblance with blue-collar work and coding because they both act on a tangible, physical output as opposed intellectual or efficiency outputs of the work from that such as lawyers and accountants.
The reasoning can go further when evaluating similarities in the market of coding and that of blue-collar work. With our older generations retiring, demand for skilled labor is at an all-time high, and companies are telling us they're willing to compensate. Let's look at plumbers, where the average in Chicago and NYC is now $70,000 a year. For more experienced plumbers, that number reportedly goes as high as $200,000! I'm sure you've heard of the same thing happening with developers. Bashing our head against our keyboard is grit not everyone is set up for, and difficult to place competent and skillful developers into the workforce. Developers with little to no experience are landing $70,000/yr or more jobs, and the sky is becoming the limit with more senior and experienced positions raking-in well over six digits nationally.
These stats do not mean there's a giant pot of gold for everyone that steps into software development. Like in blue-collar jobs, to reap the fruit of your own labor your skills and improvement must be accountable by only yourself.
The mindset that makes successful plumbers in NYC and Chicago is near identical of that of the developer, and I believe there are things to learn in improving our code skills from the lessons of those who use their hands.
Do you think of coding as blue-collar? Why or why not?
Thanks for reading, and happy coding!
Top comments (10)
Some days I feel more like a mechanic, fixing up rusty junkers with duct tape and bubble gum. Some days I feel more like an engineer, designing a brighter future.
I'm appreciative that the tools and information for programming are so widely available. Anybody with a computer and an internet connection can get started. Sure, this leads to a lot of noise, but the dev community is stronger for it and I think we can still do much better.
So I say lets knock down the rest of the walls, topple the gatekeepers, and embrace the bazaar.
Three Cheers For The Revolution!!!
...sorry, I got a bit carried away there. I really enjoyed the article. :)
Glad you enjoyed it! I feel the same sentiment. I'll have to check out Cathedral and the Bazaar some time.
I know what white/blue-collar means, but let's think about the literal sense:
Are devs usually wearing blue collars?
Are they wearing white collars?
Are they wearing any collars?
Hmm..
Let's introduce the BLACK HOODIE WORKER.
Does it matter? Sounds like it's just about labels, who cares if your job is a blue or white collar one, as long as you enjoy it and you are good at it? That's even more true given that "coding" means nothing out of context.
Coding can range from "2 shitty lines of PHP for an outdated Drupal plugin" to "code that'll end up in a NASA shuttle" and yet, both are the result of someone who did some "coding", so it's kinda irrelevant to label coding as a blue (or otherwise) collar job, it just makes no sense.
Also, blue collar jobs traditionally implies physical labor... which coding hardly is. And a white collar job usually implies more intellectual labor... which coding requires, at least in some cases.
And while your comparison to plumbers is interesting, it's not always true either because it's two really different jobs and mindsets, despite some of the similarities you can find. And you know, NYC and Chicago... that's cool, but the world is bigger than that. Culture is a very important factor too in that matter. Where I live, plumbers would make real shitty devs... just like I'd make a real shitty plumber.
Thanks for this - I found it a very interesting read. While on a literal level, I don't think software will ever be a true blue collar job (and definitely not in the public eye), I think you point out a lot of really resonant similarities between them. What's more, there's a bunch of ideas in here I'm going to take forward in my work and in managing and mentoring.
The article you link to explain what blue collar means explicitly says some tech workers refer to themselves as "no collar workers".
I also think this is a bit of posturing and takes away from the manual labour that tradespeople do. Especially when you're comparing them to a group that would typically spend their work days sitting at a desk in front of a computer. If anything, it almost feels like you have a bit of a bias against white collar work honestly and want to remain associated with the "down to earth"-iness associated with blue collar workers.
I believe there is a genuine similarity between the mindsets of developers and, say, plumbers, but I will admit that I do have a bias against white collar office work. It's probably from being jealous of office workers, and selfishly thinking "This is unfair. Waaah!"
Then I actually got an office job coding, and now ironically miss it because of the camaraderie I unknowingly had.
There's a subtle trap in a software development career. If you're anyway half-way decent (maybe a little above average) you'll get renumerated well enough to maybe get complacent. There's enough work available in big cities to never feel the fear that you'll be out of a job. Unless you have the work ethic described above, it's possible to coast for long enough to become a bit stale.
About mid way through my career to date I got a bit overwhelmed by the fact that if I stayed an engineer I'd be learning and relearning forever - it seemed a bit pointless that all of this info would be discarded as it went out of date. So I gave up a bit and have had to play a bit of catch up. I've had to embrace the mindset that knowledge is a tool. I still seek for wisdom though.
hmmm... nope, I don't think so cause we're not doing physical labour, we are using our brain.
Which comes with its own set of problems like mental health issues, burnout and probably repetitive strain injury.
In my country, we don't really rake in that amount of salary and being in an Asian country.
Being in tech is not a career to aspire for in terms of big money & prestige compared to being doctors, lawyers, accountants or bankers or civil servant by our parents.
Some are, definitely.
Coding is quite an interesting job today. You can go from a low-skilled manual labor technician to a highly-educated intelectual work like an "architect", sometimes as a career, sometimes in a single project.
It might be more artistic and expressive like exoteric languages and troll projects, also very disciplined and carefully implemented (my impression) like security (maybe not so much coding).
Few careers people use the same thing they do in their jobs as a hobby. Not sure if it's good or bad.