[kgf1980]

I went the opposite way (in the UK) and moved from development (mainly C#) to lorry driving (everything from 12T rigids to 44T artics) however in my free time I’m enjoying developing (some RoR, some Golang) more than when I was paid to do it.

Although I’m working more hours (average 50-52 hours a week compared to 38-40), I’m also much better compensated doing HGV driving than I ever was as a developer (although that may reflect more on my skills/level as a developer than anything else)

[datascienced]

This is what rest of the world looks like USA people! Developers are generally paid enough to get by but not crazy salaries. There are exceptions but required you to get through tough interviews. No $200k TC interns out here.

It means picking up a trade or just doing a scrum master job or traffic duties become viable alternatives.

Developers are caught in stagflation. Buying a property in Sydney metro area (within 90m commute) for example would be challenging for most devs.

Prices have tripled and over the frame of 15y while dev salaries or contract rates have not increased.

[piltdownman]

Truck (Lorry) Driving in the UK paying what it does is an economic aberration caused by Brexit and Covid 19 - e.g. 16,000 fewer EU nationals working as HGV drivers in the year ending March 2021.

In the end they had a shortage of nearly 100,000 drivers and had to massively incentivise new entrants to the industry. It's a complete outlier as far as blue collar vs white collar jobs in the UK/EU for the most part.

https://www.bbc.com/news/57810729

That said, overall the EU is paying somewhere around €80-120k for Senior Developers in the HCOL areas and as low as €45k in places like Spain. Overall, individual Contributor salaries outstripping even minor middle management is rare below architect or principal outside of FAANG.

This leads to the situation the commenter above identifies - that fairly vacuous softer-skill based IT Roles like Scrum Master or ART or Release Manager out-earn the median Engineer and are seen as a viable alternative for motivated people.

[devjab]

While what you say is sort of true, developers are paid better than what you made it sound like for me. The difference is perhaps that professions like truck drivers and a lot of tradeskills are compensated very well because there is a general lack of people in those professions. We also have very strong unions (and legislation because of it) in those areas, so it’s not easy to “displace” (is this the right English word?) truck drivers with cheap foreign labour in a lot of EU countries.

Unlike professions like plumbers, however, IT personal is becoming increasingly easy to come by. And since they never really formed unions, the so called golden days are over for a lot of IT professionals. Maybe excluding hardcore IT operations, networking and at least for now developers.

I wouldn’t be able to earn what I do as a truck driver though. Maybe half with more hours? Interestingly enough I didn’t get there by being rewarded for any work. I got there by switching jobs.

[Tade0]

In outsourcing destination regions like South America, the European eastern block(my location), India and SEA, software engineers still make multiples of the average wage for the region.

It's the geopolitical west that's largely stuck in this situation, but IIRC that has been the case for a while now - when I was considering emigration around eight years ago I noticed that the salary differences are not as huge as I thought and in some places (like Germany) it's just a job like any other.

[oooyay]

> This is what rest of the world looks like USA people!

This statement really depends on whatever part of the USA you're in and what kind of work you do.

> No $200k TC interns out here.

I haven't seen that yet, but I think an SF-based intern (if they were paid for the whole year) would make roughly $120k. There are plenty of people living in the Bay who haven't lived there 10 years who comparatively take home very little.

All that to say, I don't think we need to dice up and turn the developer market against itself. We've all been affected by wage stagnation, the rising cost of metros, and the threat that we must live in them or else. Labor movements are good for all laborers, etc etc etc

[datascienced]

Edit: stagflation is the wrong word I think as that means high unemployment. I wouldn’t say that is the case, just suppressed wages.

[jayphen]

Average senior engineer salary in Sydney is around AUD180k. There is no trade you can pick up that would get close to that.

It’s true that living anywhere near the Sydney metro is unaffordable though, even on a 180k salary.

[Shocka1]

200k TC for an intern is a nice cherry pick in SF or Silicon Valley maybe, but definitely at the extreme top end of the spectrum. Coastal money definitely doesn't speak for the rest of the US - there is a huge amount of space between California and NYC with developers making just enough to get by.

Interviews have always been tough for development positions in the US, whether it's a 60k out of college position in the Midwest or more senior position for a coastal company making the big bucks. It is possible to get lucky and not have to be whiteboarded, but much of the time an applicant is getting grilled.

Although it's obviously objective, I completely agree when comparing to a country like India. However, I'm not so sure it's as huge of a difference as what you are implying when comparing Western countries to non-coastal US developers. I've long since graduated, but if I were still in school and not too far into a CS degree I would probably drop out and be an electrician or plumber, freelancing application development on the side if I still had the energy.

[BoorishBears]

But I was promised free healthcare and more vacation time makes it all even!

(I've always loved that narrative for its optimism. In reality if you have a modicum of self-restraint you can save more money on a US salary than most people are making on a European salary, and tech tends to have excellent healthcare.)

[cloudripper]

I appreciate stories like this as a reminder that it is never too late to make a change in your life that is right for you. Some folks stick to their comforts and avoid such a big life change out of fear - but sometimes the temporary discomfort can lead to greater fulfillment in the long-run.

Whether your coming from or going to lorry driving - or any other job role, keep telling your story and maybe your path will be an inspiration for someone going through their own jaded, burn-out experience.

[pavel_lishin]

I am consistently enjoying myself more when doing coding side projects, than anything at work. I think that's just ... sort of normal when your profession and your hobby are the same thing - when you don't have any boss except yourself.

[Swizec]

To share an opposite anecdata: After many years of coding side projects and work projects, I no longer get a kick out of side projects. They just don’t scratch the itch anymore. They just pale in interestingness/size/complexity compared to what I get to do at work and if I wanted a big enough side project to scratch the itch, then it would require a team to get done and wouldn’t be a side project.

[kgf1980]

I think for me it’s not having a time pressure - if it takes me 2 weeks spending 2 hours a day to implement something there’s no issue when it’s just projects for myself (I’ve basically written a PWA for tracking my pay, hours, rest time etc which I use every day, and implement a new feature I decide would be useful when it comes up, so kind of the ultimate dog-fooding)

[jmkni]

I've come to realise that actually coding is the part of software development I enjoy the least, and in many staff software engineer positions, that is basically entirely what you are doing

Other people are doing the fun/interesting stuff, project managers, product owners, scrum masters, etc etc are doing all of the fun interesting figuring out/thinking, and then it's just your job to code it.

When you work on side projects, you get to wear all of those other hats and it's way more rewarding

[treflop]

For me, I enjoy programming but just as a tool. I enjoy it like I do my table saw.

But I use my table saw because I want to build certain stuff. Maybe a cabinet or something. You would never catch me using my table saw or programming “just for fun.”

And if I’m not enjoying what I’m building, it’s not like the tool will somehow make it enjoyable.

[pipes]

I've heard with lorry driving there are issues with vibrations causing physical harm eventually? Maybe that is nonsense?

If you don't mind me asking how much were you earning as a developer and how much do you earn driving lorries?

[klondike_klive]

Interesting! Do you enjoy the lorry driving? I've thought about it but one of my concerns is having to manoeuvre around tiny village high streets (lived in a village where houses were regularly hit!) Is there much of that? Are you under a lot of pressure to deliver in super tight time frames? And how long did it take you to get your HGV licence? Cheers.

[kgf1980]

It takes surprisingly little time to get used to the size - that said I’m more confident I the rigid vehicles than the artics in terms of tighter manoeuvring. Most of my work is trunking however so distribution centre to distribution centre, generally at most 5miles from a motorway, for customer deliveries I do have to take some smaller country roads, which are nerve-racking at first but now I’ll take much more confidently.

I enjoy being left alone with podcasts for the first 4-6hours of my shift and music for the rest, I tend to talk to the office 3 times a shift - once when I get my keys, once to find out what (if anything) is getting loaded for a second run and finally to hand my keys in - all in all 10mins interaction with “management” over a 10hr shift suits me fine.

Time wise, taking my Thursday shift - I’m booked at Heathrow airport to deliver at 7pm, if I’m 30-45mins late there’s no issues, but I generally leave to get there at 1840 so even if roads are bad I’m still “on-time” - after that I have a collection (anytime after 1900) which has to be at the customer (2hrs drive) by 0200 and I’m generally there by 2200 - I am lucky in the company I work for leave plenty of time for everything including breaks, I know other places run you around and try to get 10hrs work done in 8.

In terms of time for license, I had 4 days training for my rigid (anything over 7.5T with a trailer upto 750kg) with test on the last day which I passed first time, I then drove them for 6 months for my current employer and then again had 4 days training and test on the 5th for artics (anything over 7.5T with a trailer over 750kg) which I passed first time (thanks in part to driving rigids for 6months and being generally confident with the size etc of the vehicle)

[madaxe_again]

>> although that may reflect more on my skills/level as a developer than anything else

Nah, that reflects on the U.K. - developers are generally miserably underpaid, and there’s a massive shortage of freight drivers since Brexit for no apparent reason whatsoever.

[dukeyukey]

Worth pointing out that among non-US countries, the UK has among the highest developer pay. This isn't the UK under-paying, it's the US being a massive outlier.

[bmoxb]

> there’s a massive shortage of freight drivers since Brexit for no apparent reason whatsoever.

The main reason is that most drivers were Eastern European and since freedom of movement ended it has become significantly harder for them to come and work as freely as they could before. Covid is also a factor afaik.

Though I otherwise agree with you that developers (or rather white collar careers in general with the exception of certain finance roles) are not particularly well paid in many instances in the UK.

[jokethrowaway]

OP salary at 38k is pretty low.

From my experience that's in line with people doing "body rentals" for agencies under threat of being deported or because they couldn't find another job.

I think he could have doubled that with a bit of work on resume / negotiation skills.

Sure, still lower than US but life in the UK is way cheaper, so it works out unless your earning potential is mid-high 3 digits.

[kgf1980]

Surpringly the shortage of drivers is not actually a thing anymore (during Covid perhaps) but the large number of people who got their HGV license when the government changed the rules during Covid has actually caused pay rates to drastically fall due to their being more drivers looking for work than work available.

[walthamstow]

Are you away from home much? Do you have a spouse and/or kids?

[kgf1980]

I don’t do nights out or away, so I’m home every night (morning as I work 3pm until I’m done, generally 1-2am, sometimes 5am)

No spouse or kids which probably helps and is why I don’t mind picking up overtime and extra shifts

[pc86]

The best thing I ever did for my love of programming was moving (temporarily) into management. All of a sudden I was spending 10-15 hours weekly in nights and weekends writing more code than I previously had been in 40 working hours. It's amazing what a combination of a) working on your own things that you're more passionate about and b) not spending 20-25 hours coding already will do for your motivation.

[hnthrowaway0328]

I thought about making the same move but quickly dropped the idea when I see this:

The average salary for a truck driver is $24.98 per hour in Montréal, QC.

That's less than a third of my cash compensation.

I do wish getting a non programming laid back day job so that I can program happily in my free time. I kinda gave up the idea to find a programming job that I love to do -- it's just technically too tough to get into one of those low level programming jobs.

[cudgy]

Are you average?

[phendrenad2]

Same. It's nice to not have the pressure of delivering on vague and intangible goals. I just move cargo from point A to B. Simple as. Also, my home life has improved greatly because I don't have thoughts of work in the back of my mind. I took a vacation recently and it was the first time in 10+ years I felt like I was really on vacation.

[kgf1980]

For me it’s the fact I hand my keys in at the end of a shift, and I don’t have to think about work until I go in for my next shift - liberating after years of checking work emails from the sofa at night.

[gcbirzan]

Ironically, in an industry that highly regulates working times...

[kgf1980]

Yes, work is covered under both the Working Time Directive (which I’ve opted out of the night work limit and the 48hr working week) and the EU Drivers Hours rules - work are hot on infringements for exceeding working hours but more so on breaches of driving hours or insufficient rest hours.

[levidos]

What's the max someone can earn as a HGV driver in the UK?

[kgf1980]

I’d guesstimate if you were in a high-demand/niche role with a high hourly rate, plus you can max out your hours each week, probably around £65k?

[trey-jones]

Yeah, from my point of view we're going to need more 38 year-olds starting new careers as developers to replace those of us that started at 28 and are ready to move on. I'm about 13 years in, but have been burned out for at least 5 years and I'm finally ready to admit it. Get me out of here.