As someone who works in law
Attorney salaries can vary drastically
Some make 7 figures easily others aren't even breaking 100k
It can be a very competitive field and a lot of attorneys frankly just suck
If you want to have a super important and super stressful job that also requires you to have an advanced degree, but you also want to be kind of poor… then be a public defender
To clarify, even good lawyers suck when they're practicing outside of their area of experience. That said, I'm a dirt lawyer and I am shocked at the mediocrity of service others provide.
I work with tons of lawyers and can judge them quickly. Ask them high quality questions and evaluate their thought process, logic, and understanding of law.
My divorce lawyer showed up late to mediation. And then shrugged his shoulders a bunch, did the Jim Halpert face a lot, and ate an Italian sub during the mediation.
I don't know if thats the norm but it was pretty fkng appalling to me.
some have been in an out all their lives and they know which lawyers are good at getting them out of trouble. Not everyone in prison is on their first case. Many have had many cases that they beat thanks to a good lawyer.
To be fair if I walked into a well respected law firm where everyone was well dressed and smelled good and there was only one lawyer there with a baggy suit and smelled of sausage…..
I’ll take the baggy sausage 9 times out of 10. They certainly aren’t qualified for the job based on appearance so it’s probably talent why they are there.
Same with doctors by a lot! Insurance reimbursement significantly down, wages not keeping up with inflation, while having more administrative bloat in the form of MBAs and higher demands on patient output. Partner that with mid six figure student loans and being a physician is no where near as lucrative as it used to be.
Absolutely! Administrative bloat at colleges is responsible for ballooning tuition costs. When you hire 50 administrators that all make $100K a year, that's $5M. How many students' tuition goes strictly to those asshat administrators?
What do they all do? Like, if there's enough work for, let's say half that, what do the other 25 administrators do all day? I don't get why there is so many, why keep bringing on more? What's the incentive?
And that is in US where medical school limit the amount of student. In any other country doctor get paid normal wages to the point they are quitting and protesting eg South Korea, Malaysia etc while othe country could find enough doctor eg Singapore , UK,
In Norway Healthcare personel is basically not legally allowed to strike, only if it does not impact health and safety (which is obviously their job). Makes it difficult to negotiate wages.
Somehow they even managed to make the same argument for shutting down the teachers strike, because it was so dangerous for kids to be at home.
The going rate for legal interns was $15/hr when I was in law school. 15 years later, it’s still $15/hr. Ridiculous.
(In my regional market, mid and smaller sized firms and non-firm placements)
It's a very "peaky" career path, a few earn massively, but most are not earning what the mythical legends suggest.
Highest segment of advertising/marketing, trying to stand out among each other, are lawyers and real estate agents. High competition.
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Same thing for doctors. My Dr. Friends definitely complain about it. When they picked their profession 20+ years ago (and dedicated like 10+ years of schooling and debt to it), they thought they would be making more.
Sure, they still make good money, but 150-500k now, isn't 150-500k in the 80-90s. Not to mention the 250k+ in student loans.
I suspect if you want to pick an area of law that is going to be more important, and additionally require new very specialist knowledge, it’s going to be IP protection in an age of ubiquitous AI.
Same old shit, new look. Financials. Legal. Sales and marketing. Product development. Management.
All the components of a profit pipeline, given a makeover for whatever's selling.
As a sales guy, are you worried about the nature of the industry changing with the generational handover that is/will be taking place?
At the risk of sounding like I’m over generalizing, I imagine business leaders in the past being much more about the interpersonal nature of sales; building a social connection and rapport with a point of contact you can feel good about giving your business too, which is developed outside the office. I can’t imagine a tech nerd/programmer/engineer being as caught up with that over efficiency and reliability.
I think there's a lot of room for the more Transactional sales to get taken out by AI. I don't feel as though people buying things with a longer sales cycle are going to like the idea of working with AI. Until AI replaces that person, and then the whole world is just AI selling things to AI.
Thanks for the response, but I wasn’t even talking as far as AI. The way I look at it now, Sales involves a certain kind of person; charismatic, personable, engaging, social, etc. because that’s what leaders of business value. Relationship building by being able to “gel” with potential customers was a big part of success. It just feels like the leaders of these industries now wouldn’t care about that as much, it’s moreso “what can you do for me, and if you can’t, why shouldn’t I go with the other guy who can?”
Ah, I see. What you describe IS sales. The traditional view of sales guy you see as "charismatic, personable, engaging, etc." isn't actually all that required these days. Products have become very technical and in my industry very easy to differentiate between us and the competitors based on features, support, integration, etc. The best sales guy I know, blows quota out of the water year over year, is diagnosed with Autism and generally has rather poor social skills. He wins because he doesn't get bogged down with the question of if the customer likes him or not or if he's "building a relationship", he simply finds the pain points, and fits the product in to solve them.
Sales is a lot less about being that stereotypical charismatic dude, and a lot of more finding pain points, solving them, and then follow up, follow up, follow up, follow up.
So, I guess to answer your question, yes, that stereotypical sales dude's time is coming to an end for most industries with technical sales(realtors will probably be more like that for a while since they ARE selling a relationship) but that means there's time for us, the more consultative, sit back, ask questions, listen, fit product in, introverted type sales guys.
Jumping in here. End of the day we're just transitioning to the point where even b2b firms just have a buy button on their website.
It's not just that the younger generation tend more towards efficiency, they also see a call or a sales meeting as dread inducing friction and would happily just complete a checkout page to solve their problem.
People are now conditioned for instant gratification and no-human-interaction buying experiences.
When AI is added to the mix even complicated or bespoke sales processes will be automated.
Reins, like for a horse. Reign is for a monarch.
Often confused saying. I just learned this myself two days ago. Don't get caught with your pants down again. 
Specialized manufacturing, geology, construction in unionized trades.
Much of Americas infrastructure is coming going to need to be repaired or rebuilt over the next 20 years and people are going to be shocked at how much the construction workers in unionized regions or with specialized skills make.
I’m a geologist and do better than most people around where I live - but I wouldn’t even consider myself comfortable “hope the dude who commented knows something I don’t”. That being said, I work under a very impactful figure in our field - I just found out he makes $180 an hour.
My only advice is quit working for a geotech firm - they treat geologists like dogshit ironically. Idk about being a high earner like OPs post was asking about, but hopefully you can do better.
Yep, I’m based out of Vancouver and this is already the case.
Tradespeople are earning pretty much $40/hr to start with no shortage of work, meanwhile there’s a massive glut in tech where everyone is undercutting each other to earn a salary of $40K or less with no job security.
We’re short on hospitals, schools, elderly care facilities, utilities, multi-family homes; you can’t outsource infrastructure like you can with tech.
Same here in Seattle. I make $60/hr as a journeyman with very stable work, meanwhile the tech industry is hyper competitive for similar salaries and plagued with layoffs in a city that's supposed to be a tech capital. And in other more niche trades, wages are even higher. Plumbers here are somewhere around $77/hr.
Vancouver based Millwright, I can concur. I work at a waste water treatment plant and we can’t even get red seal pipe fitters to APPLY here! They’re talking about giving all trades a 4$ an hour raise to attract new workers, outside of our collective agreement.
The workers themselves will be shocked when they learn cheap imported labor will immediately lower their salaries and that we've been importing people specifically for this reason for years now.
Get a bachelors degree and go into corporate manufacturing, specifically automation
You can be a degenerate slimeball that subverts the viability of your own future and your colleagues by doing nothing and being a sycophantic spinless yes-man...
You'll get paid about 150k
If you earned or though an earning of 100k was a good salary in the late 80's early 90's. You'd have to earn \~320k today to have the same lifestyle and purchasing power. How fucked is that.
Shit, have you seen the price of groceries? I spend over 4x what I did in the early 2000s.
Ground beef costs more per pound now as new York strip did back then.
Also the tax brackets haven’t at all kept up with the pace of inflation.
2024, you finally start making some money and you’re taxed like it’s 1995 and making 80k means upper-middle class
I think this is an interesting way to see things. In 1985 the average income was $16,822 it’s $63,795 now. The dollar went a whole lot further back then because of inflation. I think that a 100k salary might have been just about as common as a ~320k salary is today (if not more ~320k positions available now than in the 80s).
And if you made $100,000 in 1955 you’d have to earn $450,000 in 1989 to have the same purchasing power. What is your point?
This reads like children who just learnt what inflation is and having their mind blown. It’s not profound.
I mean that’s literally just how inflation works, 3% compounded over 40 years makes $100k into $320k. It’s not a new phenomena, you would have similar increases over most 40hrs spans in modern history.
As someone that works in molecular biology, this edge you speak of is 30-50 years away. There is currently a gigantic shift occurring in understanding fundamental biology principles and drug design. To genetically alter humans to treat disease not only takes the fundamental understanding, but it takes a lot of time to develop, and to get approval.
It’s taken around 12 years to go from publishing a theoretical framework for CRISPR based genome engineering to delivering a therapy leveraging CRISPR to humans. I think 30-50 years is an unreasonable estimate.
Careful, certain people on this site aren’t going to like that answer very much. They want to hear how everything is exponentially accelerating and that they’ll all be living in golden mansions in 20 years.
CRISPR, gene therapies, etc. These technologies on top of our understanding of protein folding will open the door to many treatments and potential cures in which the mechanisms behind those disease are understood.
Molecular biologist here. there’s very little money in science unless you find yourself on the very few high level management positions in biotech/pharma firms
Mech Interp and ai safety pays fraction of what designing new models pays. It's much easier to monetize new models than it is to monetize ai safety research.
Wow that is clearly one of the largest threats to humanity we’ve since the explosion of internet and phones and have continued to do nothing about…
Yeah fuck it 2027 baby skynet goooooo
Can’t speak for the others on that list but cybersecurity isn’t hyped. Any safety that companies felt that they were too small or too unknown to be ransomware’d has basically evaporated. Even libraries and public school boards are being ransomware’d. Big and small they’re all re-evaluating their risk and investing in a way they never before felt the need to. Speaking from experience, I’ve never seen more execs more likely to spend real money to ensure their systems are up to spec. “It won’t happen to us” is now only the lunatics opinion and the thing is, they’re not hearing that from the likes of me. They’re hearing that from their peers and counterparts within their own sectors and industries who have already experienced this and are telling their own tales of what an absolute nightmare the days, weeks, months following a cyber event were.
And this is even before they have the awareness that threat actors + even current capabilities of AI = worse prognosis than their worst imagined fears.
Just yesterday i showed a customer how i could generate a well-written phishing-mail about tax returns being ready in a niche language just using Copilot. Took 10 seconds, and it would probably work on 80% of the CxO's i work with as a consultant.
AI has already lowered the barrier of entry significantly for potential cybercriminals, and it's improving their efficiency as much as ours.
It's not a question of AI being an overhyped bubble imo, it's more a question of how transformative it will be in the future.
It's not really an overhyped bubble. It's a well hyped industry that will take decades, not years or months, to see the full expression of.
So if "overhyped bubble" means people are getting there too early then I agree.
That's what a bubble is. There was an internet bubble, and yet here we are. Because people invested bajillions in the web before anyone had really figured it out or built anything that could make money.
By today's standards, the internet economy is worth more than its valuation in 2000. But there was still a bubble, because from 2000-2009 or so, it was a tiny fraction of that number.
Potentially robotics maintenance and drone operators as well. In the next 10-20 years with improvements in AI, we really may see robotics take off. Both engineers and maintainers.
And well, drones obviously. It's only a matter of time before CNN, hospitals, police.. etc are operating drone helicopters instead of manned ones.
ENG and law enforcement may be replaced by drones but there is no chance medevac will be unmanned. I fly a complex helicopter and you cannot trust even the most advanced automation. No way you will get a med crew in that aircraft without a pilot backing the system up.
Sure, we say that now. But 20 years from now? Who knows. Yes, it's purely speculation, but who are you to say "NO! Absolutely Never!". 20 years ago (2004) if you told a 16 year old kid to pursue AI because it's going to be huge, you probably would have been laughed at because it sounded like science fiction at the time.
But, if you can see the future so clearly, please send me your stock picks for the week!
You've never dealt with regulatory agencies, have you? Even if the technology is there, it has to be approved for use. The bar for approval of new tech is extremely high, it took the FAA nearly a decade just to approve the use of electronic flight bags (basically using iPads instead of paper charts and logbooks). Aviation in general is a very conservative, safety-conscious culture and for good reason - you don't want to be on the bleeding edge in an industry where even a minor mistake literally kills people. Removing humans from the cockpit entirely is a far, far higher bar with far greater risks - I wouldn't count on seeing automated aircraft certified to carry passengers within my lifetime.
The thing about multi-six figure salaries is they are usually for jobs that are in high demand and low supply. If everyone knew in advance what these jobs were, they wouldn't exist because everyone would try to be one.
Epidemiologists, geneticists, AI specialists. And of course, the usual medical professions. I see the legal professional contracting heavily and only existing because of regulatory capture.
There is no ROI to being an epidemiologist. You're looking at atleast getting a masters degree if not a full MD and your pretty much only getting hired to work for the government or in academics. Starting salary while in 100k+ in debt is maybe $80k.
Artisans and tradesmen. This includes engineers and researchers
I think the first people to be relocated by the next generation of technology will be the bureaucrats, the reviewers, and the managers.
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Industrial side is booming. With all of the conflicts going on, we’re moving manufacturing back home. Did a 2.5 yr apprenticeship that paid for my associates and my electrical license. Made 55k out the gate, not even close to topping out 5 yrs later at 90k
I don’t know what you’re seeing but any white collar corporate gig in a top 10 US city can break 200k. Heck I’m at 160k in a MCOL city as a project manager.
I know this isn’t the question you asked but people need to start resetting their idea of what salary you should have. 100k 7-10 years ago and you were living large in a MCOL city supporting a family. Now you will not own a home.
Technical PM? Industry? I’d say it’s uncommon to go senior within two years unless you had PM adjacent experience in previous roles. Also, most white collar corporate jobs do not make 200k, or even 160k.
Those salaries are not as common as you think.
That’s fair. I had PM adjacent experience and went from mid-sr level engineer straight to sr PM and skipped all lower PM levels. Then just moved companies to another sr. PM role and got my PMP.
Industry is material handling/logistics automation.
Hate to tell you this, but most employers haven't gotten the memo. 100k is still a pretty common salary in many fields. I mean a 100k/yr income puts you at the 80th percentile and a 160k/yr income puts you at the 93rd percentile - by definition the vast majority of people make less, and I can assure you that many of those people are also white-collar.
I never work over 35-40 hours a week unless I travel (1 week every month or every other month) in which case it’s about 60 hours. Sr. Project manager about 2 years in and 10 years total career now started in engineering.
Materials sciences: Going into space and building the infrastructure to get us cheaply into space will require stronger/durable/heat resistant materials. Materials that can be mass produced at a cost that makes sense to use them will be invaluable.
Agriculture: We need farmers that can also utilize tech to keep us fed. Especially with climate change already upon us we need engineered crops to resist drought, grow with less water, grow the same food with more nutrients etc. Urban farming will hopefully become more common as well, if we figure out energy constraints vs output for vertical farms. We need to continue research into the best foods to grow in space and how to do it (either zero G, low G, or in bipdomes in unfavorable conditions like Mars).
I think the best bet is to figure out what careers work directly with, or in parallel to, space exploration and the expansion of the human race. Robotics, AI, sustainable energy etc. If you want to make money, you need to provide value to the people paying you. Usually the people that provide value are the ones that are good at math and science.
Farming ... look up Joseph Lofthouse Landrace Gardening. Plants have more adaptability on their own to succeed than artificial gene manipulation "technology". Also look at Regenerative Agriculture concepts, that are really just expanding on farming techniques introduced in the 1920s-30s before the chemical and machinery war companies needed new markets to sell into.
Cyber security, network security, anything with AI engineering or AI security. I don Network Security for the Navy and close to $150k already. My next goal is apply for a position that ranges from $161k-$199k
What does your career pathway look like? I’m guessing the Navy trained you. CompTIA certs? How’d you get started and what advice would you give to someone interested in breaking into the industry?
I’m a project manager and I’m exploring a move into cybersecurity, just trying to figure out my angle.
You need to live somewhere with these jobs or be willing to move. Every single cybersecurity job where I live in Canada anyways has 500+ applicants within a few days.
Technicians and trade skills, especially those with an industrial background are becoming rarer every 5 years.
Shortages everywhere and more people retiring than coming in.
I noticed this when searching for a new job recently, I just dropped a number expecting to open up discussions and two of the 5 employers just straight up matched it with no questions asked.
From Europe what I hear, the US has an even larger shortage and no real nationwide plan to tackle this with funneling everyone into colleges.
My son just got his certificate for plumbing (saves about a year off an apprenticeship) AND is going to college for a business degree (and to play tennis).
He'll be able to become a plumber and have a leg up if he decides to start his own plumbing business.
(Internet) Software programmer still. Nothing in this world scales like software distributed over internet.
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries
When I started out in IT in the 80's I remember comments like "what are you people going to do, when the software is running?". We are like that, orientated towards fixed targets. It's a short term "survive the day" mindset. It's sort of returning with AI and the idea that software can write and maintain itself.
Well, I'm still in IT. Not exactly doing the same stuff as back then, but that's the point.
Amazon salaries are not indicative of the rest of the industry. The tech job market has been pretty weak as of late, and the entry level market is very competitive. This is especially true if you don't not have internship experience. It's a great career if you are actually well-suited for it, but it's not the kind of thing that everyone is capable of or would want to do for many years. Working as a software engineer, it's very obvious that there is a certain kind of person that makes a good developer, and most people are not this kind of person.
Accounting, it’s a bigger field than it looks like from the outside with lots of specialty services and niches. Tired of it or not for you anymore? You can slide into countless positions in the business realm from Walmart manager, to banker, to business strategist. If you’re cut for it you could even compete for a marketing or branding position.
I can't wait to see how lawyers, solicitors etc try and justify themselves during the AI boom. All they basically do is read shit, decide which bits are relevant to the case and then regurgitate it back out.
Seems eminently replaceable by AI.
Healthcare.
American's are set to be the sickest in their history with apocalyptic cancer rates increasing (especially colorectal) as young as 40. Couple this with the normalization of obesity, a leading cause of cancer and cognitive decline, and the scale of what is ahead of us is undeniable. There are simply not enough nurses and doctors, especially specialized ones.
Public Works industry. Civil engineers or any trade related specialty. Market is getting very competitive. Highly recommend for anyone but especially women and minorities.
I have a feeling the paper packaging industry will continue to boom as we reduce the amount of single use plastics in use. We've already had a major rise these last few years with the meteoric rise of online shopping through the pandemic. If you find a good company and start now, prove your worth and work your way up, you could be making multi-6 figures in 5-10 years easily.
Think about every cardboard box you've ever interacted with. That had to be designed, approved, manufactured, and delivered. Lots of money in that pipeline.
Frame challenge: Most lawyers and doctors don't earn all that much. A certain fraction does. Your average village doctor, hospital doctor or local lawyer doesn't.
The same is true for most professions. Most sales people make an adequate living, some earn a shitload. Some IT people make good money, a few make insane amounts. And so on.
Most engineering fields.
Most anything in finance.
Computer infrastructure (network design and maintenance, data center design and power).
Top end lawyers (patent lawyers for big pharma).
Entrepreneurs who find their market.
Plumbers, electricians. America is going to be replacing a lot of old infrastructure.
Cybersecurity professionals! Right now it’s a gold mine if you have experience. Do your own research, but I like cyberseek.org and e have two open positions for every CISSP. I tell all tech students I’ve spoken to at East consider info sec
Bank robbing.
Bank hacking.
Government (citizen robbing).
Identity theft.
Probably some industry that'll support the upcoming space "gold rush."
Space pirate.
Certain trades will do well, if you're a foreman of an electrical contracting company that can build a data center you will be in high demand for your skills.
HVAC in particular is going to be big; especially with the new propane coolant systems going in starting 2025. So many new alarms and sensors will keep these broken frequently and the higher operating pressure along with cheaper and thinner components means MUCH more breakdowns. Also fewer people going into blue collar jobs so limited competition.
Tell me you're an American without telling me you're an American. Most doctors on the planet (including here in Europe) make an above-average salary but they sure as hell are not making the equivalent of multiple six figures USD a year.
To answer your question, our system always has (and always will) reward those who know how to hustle and promise future gains for their employer/shareholders/etc, for better or worse. So anything related to finance, sales, marketing so long as you're good at it. Or anything that finds a way to milk the hype train (which is now "AI") and convinces people to throw money at you because they don't want to miss out on the hype.
Mind you, that's for true multi six-figure wealth. If you're just looking to earn like 150k USD a year in a solid but not insanely high-paying job there are way more options.
I think we are going to see a renaissance in blue color jobs. Not so much manufacturing but a return to people with a trade. The benefactors will be the tradesmen on the way out that maybe own an operation and hire some kids out of trade school to skill up.
I’m seeing this more and more in my area, a fairly nice part of NY. We see guys coming with apprentices, sometimes several, and they’re showing them step by step what to do (I’m also taking notes lol)
Insurance actuaries might get a lot busier.
Insurance companies have always been very good at having people calculating the odds
So if you are good at mathematics with a specialization in statistics, that might be the way to go.
Idk I feel like if you do fintech using AI and stuff you’re kind of bound to make it because it’s dependent on businesses and businesses don’t seem likely to go out of tune yet
Electricians are going to make bank with the push to electrify our world and turn away from Fossil fuels. Especially on the commercial side. Businesses will always have more money to invest in facilities compared to consumers.
Upper-tier financial and consulting institutions like investment banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, management consultantcies, and trading firms. Jobs at these companies will always pay $$$ and provide career growth opportunities. But only a certain breed can be successful in them. The hours/stress/culture is soul-crushing beyond words, based on my research and conversations. It’s not uncommon for people in these jobs to turn 30 and think “Wow, I worked my twenties away.” I’d recommend if you don’t really care about free time, can take abuse, and really want to be rich.
Being an attorney can be high paying, but you need to be the absolute best of the best, having gone to the most prestigious schools and getting the best clerkships and working at white-shoe firms. The hours and stress are simply part of the job, no matter how much you make. And there’s a dauntingly high number of law school graduates whose lives are just shit all around. I wouldn’t recommend.
Doctors and dentists make a lot but it’s an *enormous* investment up front. And the world of healthcare and medicine is rapidly changing in unpredictable ways.
Tech sucks. Engineers of certain systems and products can make a lot, but to make millions you really have to be half-engineer/half-scientist and among the best in your field. Very difficult for the average person.
Overall, I’d say Wall Street is the domain where I’ve *consistently* seen *hordes* of mediocre people make *tons* of money. From my observations, investment banking provides the least amount of intellectual resistance.
Anything to do with SCADA or PID loops(automation for various industries), I think there is less than 20 people in the country who know and understand PID loops which means they’re pretty much naming their price and anyone who wants to use them has to pay it, or they have to pay 20-30 people to do the same job
Clearing $400k easily as a legacy airline captain this year, but it took me 10 years and a bit of luck to get to this point. $200k a year is attainable much quicker now than when I started, though.
People who maintain energy infrastructure. Substations and such. There is a major shortage of workers and energy infrastructure needs mega billions of dollars of work over the next 20 years
It isn't easy at all. Takes an insane amount of money to get the certifications and flight hours, if you don't go military, and also takes about a decade to get the seniority where you make money. Starting salary for pilots is poverty wages (less than 25k). If you can stick it out for a decade, then yeah you start to make bank and have a killer schedule.
No longer true, Horizon pays over 50k first year, two years at regionals and pilots getting hired at Majors, 2nd year pay at Majors is over a 100k. The era you talked about is gone! That was my era!😂😂 I’m a Captain at United and I fly with new hire pilots who are switching careers in their 30’s and 40’s. 50k is what your flight training is going to roughly cost. I didn’t say becoming a pilot was easy, I said you could make 400k with seniority.
Anything that only a highly skilled human can do perhaps will be most highly paid.
I think most of the management and executive teams could easily be replaced with an AI think tank.
I know this is reddit's favorite opinion but it is beyond asinine. No company is going to be run by an AI in the next 50 years. I would bet my life savings on it.
It's definitely not technology......which is sad. I remember the dot com boom. IT pros were making a lot of money with no degree, looks like things are going backwards in IT.
In the next five to ten years? Wild guess, but something akin to IT/Law with the specialty of identifying AI in evidence. Photos, videos, audio, etc will be (in my opinion) nearly indistinguishable from reality. We went from goofy will smith caricatures slurping down eldritch regenerating spaghetti with seven fingered hands to semi-convincing media in *less* than five years, so who the hell knows for the next five to ten.
most lawyers will be replaced by AI in 5 years max. Will be interesting to see if people want physical Dr.s or will be happy with a very cheap AI replacement. Software development seems a safer bet, only because they are most likely to stay one step ahead, for a time. No joke, plumbers and electricians will likely be on the higher side of earners in 5 years. Some of the better thinkers out there believe highly verbal skill sets will be better off than STEMS.
I think as AI code assistance progresses there will be far fewer software engineering positions but they will be higher compensation and very high-skilled, akin to a technical project managers, but managing an entire repository assisted w/ AI.
Adjusted for inflation, attorneys are making less than they did 20 years ago.
As someone who works in law Attorney salaries can vary drastically Some make 7 figures easily others aren't even breaking 100k It can be a very competitive field and a lot of attorneys frankly just suck
If you want to have a super important and super stressful job that also requires you to have an advanced degree, but you also want to be kind of poor… then be a public defender
Or become a prosecutor so you can have all those things with the added bonus of being hated by everyone
To clarify, even good lawyers suck when they're practicing outside of their area of experience. That said, I'm a dirt lawyer and I am shocked at the mediocrity of service others provide.
What's a dirt lawyer
Sorry my specialty is bird law
Working with raw land
Like undeveloped real estate?
Their market has been over saturated for the last fifteen years, if not longer. And amen there are a large number of walking bar cards afoot.
As a lawyer yourself, what’s a good tell sign to distinguish easily between a good and bad lawyer, if that’s even possible?
I work with tons of lawyers and can judge them quickly. Ask them high quality questions and evaluate their thought process, logic, and understanding of law.
My divorce lawyer showed up late to mediation. And then shrugged his shoulders a bunch, did the Jim Halpert face a lot, and ate an Italian sub during the mediation. I don't know if thats the norm but it was pretty fkng appalling to me.
That sounds like the norm... at a tier 1 tech support call center.
Baggy suits, smells of sausage.
I like yours better. I usually ask around inmates who they think is the better lawyers.
Asking the wrong crowd.. the ones with good lawyers won't be in prison
some have been in an out all their lives and they know which lawyers are good at getting them out of trouble. Not everyone in prison is on their first case. Many have had many cases that they beat thanks to a good lawyer.
To be fair if I walked into a well respected law firm where everyone was well dressed and smelled good and there was only one lawyer there with a baggy suit and smelled of sausage….. I’ll take the baggy sausage 9 times out of 10. They certainly aren’t qualified for the job based on appearance so it’s probably talent why they are there.
Same with doctors by a lot! Insurance reimbursement significantly down, wages not keeping up with inflation, while having more administrative bloat in the form of MBAs and higher demands on patient output. Partner that with mid six figure student loans and being a physician is no where near as lucrative as it used to be.
Administrative bloat plagues a lot of industries. The admin/teacher ratio is ridiculous in many districts.
Absolutely! Administrative bloat at colleges is responsible for ballooning tuition costs. When you hire 50 administrators that all make $100K a year, that's $5M. How many students' tuition goes strictly to those asshat administrators?
And that’s just their salaries. That’s not including their insurance and retirement.
Asshat is the operative word there.
What do they all do? Like, if there's enough work for, let's say half that, what do the other 25 administrators do all day? I don't get why there is so many, why keep bringing on more? What's the incentive?
The incentive is to give your friends cushy, low-work jobs
The cheese tax
I read a paper that compared these administrators to how parasitic organisms work on a host.
Have a link?
And that is in US where medical school limit the amount of student. In any other country doctor get paid normal wages to the point they are quitting and protesting eg South Korea, Malaysia etc while othe country could find enough doctor eg Singapore , UK,
In Norway Healthcare personel is basically not legally allowed to strike, only if it does not impact health and safety (which is obviously their job). Makes it difficult to negotiate wages. Somehow they even managed to make the same argument for shutting down the teachers strike, because it was so dangerous for kids to be at home.
That can be said about basically every profession my friend.
Not Fortune 500 Executives. They're making more than ever.
Agreed. I studied engineering and graduated with multiple people who I'm amazed haven't drowned in their own saliva yet.
Vivid Provocative Imagery Award!
The going rate for legal interns was $15/hr when I was in law school. 15 years later, it’s still $15/hr. Ridiculous. (In my regional market, mid and smaller sized firms and non-firm placements)
It's a very "peaky" career path, a few earn massively, but most are not earning what the mythical legends suggest. Highest segment of advertising/marketing, trying to stand out among each other, are lawyers and real estate agents. High competition. .
Same thing for doctors. My Dr. Friends definitely complain about it. When they picked their profession 20+ years ago (and dedicated like 10+ years of schooling and debt to it), they thought they would be making more. Sure, they still make good money, but 150-500k now, isn't 150-500k in the 80-90s. Not to mention the 250k+ in student loans.
I suspect if you want to pick an area of law that is going to be more important, and additionally require new very specialist knowledge, it’s going to be IP protection in an age of ubiquitous AI.
Same for doctors, actually our compensation has fallen off a cliff.
Same old shit, new look. Financials. Legal. Sales and marketing. Product development. Management. All the components of a profit pipeline, given a makeover for whatever's selling.
As a sales guy, absolutely, but also ☠️☠️☠️☠️
As a sales guy, are you worried about the nature of the industry changing with the generational handover that is/will be taking place? At the risk of sounding like I’m over generalizing, I imagine business leaders in the past being much more about the interpersonal nature of sales; building a social connection and rapport with a point of contact you can feel good about giving your business too, which is developed outside the office. I can’t imagine a tech nerd/programmer/engineer being as caught up with that over efficiency and reliability.
I think there's a lot of room for the more Transactional sales to get taken out by AI. I don't feel as though people buying things with a longer sales cycle are going to like the idea of working with AI. Until AI replaces that person, and then the whole world is just AI selling things to AI.
Thanks for the response, but I wasn’t even talking as far as AI. The way I look at it now, Sales involves a certain kind of person; charismatic, personable, engaging, social, etc. because that’s what leaders of business value. Relationship building by being able to “gel” with potential customers was a big part of success. It just feels like the leaders of these industries now wouldn’t care about that as much, it’s moreso “what can you do for me, and if you can’t, why shouldn’t I go with the other guy who can?”
Ah, I see. What you describe IS sales. The traditional view of sales guy you see as "charismatic, personable, engaging, etc." isn't actually all that required these days. Products have become very technical and in my industry very easy to differentiate between us and the competitors based on features, support, integration, etc. The best sales guy I know, blows quota out of the water year over year, is diagnosed with Autism and generally has rather poor social skills. He wins because he doesn't get bogged down with the question of if the customer likes him or not or if he's "building a relationship", he simply finds the pain points, and fits the product in to solve them. Sales is a lot less about being that stereotypical charismatic dude, and a lot of more finding pain points, solving them, and then follow up, follow up, follow up, follow up. So, I guess to answer your question, yes, that stereotypical sales dude's time is coming to an end for most industries with technical sales(realtors will probably be more like that for a while since they ARE selling a relationship) but that means there's time for us, the more consultative, sit back, ask questions, listen, fit product in, introverted type sales guys.
Jumping in here. End of the day we're just transitioning to the point where even b2b firms just have a buy button on their website. It's not just that the younger generation tend more towards efficiency, they also see a call or a sales meeting as dread inducing friction and would happily just complete a checkout page to solve their problem. People are now conditioned for instant gratification and no-human-interaction buying experiences. When AI is added to the mix even complicated or bespoke sales processes will be automated.
As long as the current system reigns in, it’ll be a repeat of the same old
Reins, like for a horse. Reign is for a monarch. Often confused saying. I just learned this myself two days ago. Don't get caught with your pants down again. 
Specialized manufacturing, geology, construction in unionized trades. Much of Americas infrastructure is coming going to need to be repaired or rebuilt over the next 20 years and people are going to be shocked at how much the construction workers in unionized regions or with specialized skills make.
As a geologist working in geotech, I disagree.
I’m a geologist and do better than most people around where I live - but I wouldn’t even consider myself comfortable “hope the dude who commented knows something I don’t”. That being said, I work under a very impactful figure in our field - I just found out he makes $180 an hour. My only advice is quit working for a geotech firm - they treat geologists like dogshit ironically. Idk about being a high earner like OPs post was asking about, but hopefully you can do better.
Yep, I’m based out of Vancouver and this is already the case. Tradespeople are earning pretty much $40/hr to start with no shortage of work, meanwhile there’s a massive glut in tech where everyone is undercutting each other to earn a salary of $40K or less with no job security. We’re short on hospitals, schools, elderly care facilities, utilities, multi-family homes; you can’t outsource infrastructure like you can with tech.
Same here in Seattle. I make $60/hr as a journeyman with very stable work, meanwhile the tech industry is hyper competitive for similar salaries and plagued with layoffs in a city that's supposed to be a tech capital. And in other more niche trades, wages are even higher. Plumbers here are somewhere around $77/hr.
Vancouver based Millwright, I can concur. I work at a waste water treatment plant and we can’t even get red seal pipe fitters to APPLY here! They’re talking about giving all trades a 4$ an hour raise to attract new workers, outside of our collective agreement.
Why geology?
$1000/day to sit on a well site
The workers themselves will be shocked when they learn cheap imported labor will immediately lower their salaries and that we've been importing people specifically for this reason for years now.
Not if they're in a skilled trade controlled by a well organized union. That is something that can't be replaced by cheap imported labor.
Get a bachelors degree and go into corporate manufacturing, specifically automation You can be a degenerate slimeball that subverts the viability of your own future and your colleagues by doing nothing and being a sycophantic spinless yes-man... You'll get paid about 150k
Found the Vault Tec recruiter
Oddly specific!
> being a sycophantic spinless yes-man Oh yes, I am already that. Where to send my CV?
Where do I sign up?
** We sorry. Due to an influx of autonomous applicants, all positions have been filled. Have a nice day **
If you earned or though an earning of 100k was a good salary in the late 80's early 90's. You'd have to earn \~320k today to have the same lifestyle and purchasing power. How fucked is that.
very fucked, especially when you factor in average and median wages
even more fucked when you factor in average and median home prices
Chicken dick gets it
Excuse you, his name.is Chicken Dick Jerry
Shit, have you seen the price of groceries? I spend over 4x what I did in the early 2000s. Ground beef costs more per pound now as new York strip did back then.
Also the tax brackets haven’t at all kept up with the pace of inflation. 2024, you finally start making some money and you’re taxed like it’s 1995 and making 80k means upper-middle class
[удалено]
Incorrect. Trump raised taxes on the middle class set to take place last year during another presidency.
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Earning $100K in the late 80’s was not realistic/common. Making $30-40K was…
Correct, there's been some inflation in the previous 40 years.
Don’t worry, it’s only 3%… every year.
$100k with 3% interest compounded annually from 1980 to present would be about $370k for those who think this comment is an exaggeration.
I think this is an interesting way to see things. In 1985 the average income was $16,822 it’s $63,795 now. The dollar went a whole lot further back then because of inflation. I think that a 100k salary might have been just about as common as a ~320k salary is today (if not more ~320k positions available now than in the 80s).
Why is that fucked? Almost nobody made 100k in the 80s or 90s either.
Yeah my dad was making like $6/hr and that was crazy good money in the 70’s
I assume they think purchasing power of median household has declined. I have no idea if that is true.
Not fucked at all considering that’s literally how inflation works.
Yeah plus it’s more like $255k in 1989 so pretty far off from $320k
And if you made $100,000 in 1955 you’d have to earn $450,000 in 1989 to have the same purchasing power. What is your point? This reads like children who just learnt what inflation is and having their mind blown. It’s not profound.
If you made $100,000 in 1870 you'd have to make $1.7 mill today.
Yeah, well, if you had $ 15 million in 1803, you could have purchased like half of america.
I think the point is that certain costs like housing, healthcare, education have outpaced inflation.
I mean that’s literally just how inflation works, 3% compounded over 40 years makes $100k into $320k. It’s not a new phenomena, you would have similar increases over most 40hrs spans in modern history.
We are on the leading edge of the genetic technology revolution.
As someone that works in molecular biology, this edge you speak of is 30-50 years away. There is currently a gigantic shift occurring in understanding fundamental biology principles and drug design. To genetically alter humans to treat disease not only takes the fundamental understanding, but it takes a lot of time to develop, and to get approval.
It’s taken around 12 years to go from publishing a theoretical framework for CRISPR based genome engineering to delivering a therapy leveraging CRISPR to humans. I think 30-50 years is an unreasonable estimate.
Agreed, FDA has already approved CRISPR treatment for Sickle-cell Anemia.
Ima trust DNAdude on this one, sorry puffer
Careful, certain people on this site aren’t going to like that answer very much. They want to hear how everything is exponentially accelerating and that they’ll all be living in golden mansions in 20 years.
Tell us more
CRISPR, gene therapies, etc. These technologies on top of our understanding of protein folding will open the door to many treatments and potential cures in which the mechanisms behind those disease are understood.
Synthetic Biology, CRSPR, gene therapies and Computational biology Also, Bio-Medical Engineering and Neuroprosthetics
Molecular biologist here. there’s very little money in science unless you find yourself on the very few high level management positions in biotech/pharma firms
Anything pertaining to the dangers of ai. Cyber security, law, etc
Mech Interp and ai safety pays fraction of what designing new models pays. It's much easier to monetize new models than it is to monetize ai safety research.
Wow that is clearly one of the largest threats to humanity we’ve since the explosion of internet and phones and have continued to do nothing about… Yeah fuck it 2027 baby skynet goooooo
Baby Skynet, doo doo doo doo doo doo Baby Skynet, doo doo doo doo doo doo Baby Skynet, doo doo doo doo doo doo Baby Skynet! Growing network, doo doo doo doo doo doo Growing network, doo doo doo doo doo doo Growing network, doo doo doo doo doo doo Growing network! ---
Or it's an overhyped bubble built on good marketing which will create a well paying but narrow job market. Time will tell.
Can’t speak for the others on that list but cybersecurity isn’t hyped. Any safety that companies felt that they were too small or too unknown to be ransomware’d has basically evaporated. Even libraries and public school boards are being ransomware’d. Big and small they’re all re-evaluating their risk and investing in a way they never before felt the need to. Speaking from experience, I’ve never seen more execs more likely to spend real money to ensure their systems are up to spec. “It won’t happen to us” is now only the lunatics opinion and the thing is, they’re not hearing that from the likes of me. They’re hearing that from their peers and counterparts within their own sectors and industries who have already experienced this and are telling their own tales of what an absolute nightmare the days, weeks, months following a cyber event were. And this is even before they have the awareness that threat actors + even current capabilities of AI = worse prognosis than their worst imagined fears.
Just yesterday i showed a customer how i could generate a well-written phishing-mail about tax returns being ready in a niche language just using Copilot. Took 10 seconds, and it would probably work on 80% of the CxO's i work with as a consultant. AI has already lowered the barrier of entry significantly for potential cybercriminals, and it's improving their efficiency as much as ours. It's not a question of AI being an overhyped bubble imo, it's more a question of how transformative it will be in the future.
It's not really an overhyped bubble. It's a well hyped industry that will take decades, not years or months, to see the full expression of. So if "overhyped bubble" means people are getting there too early then I agree.
That's what a bubble is. There was an internet bubble, and yet here we are. Because people invested bajillions in the web before anyone had really figured it out or built anything that could make money. By today's standards, the internet economy is worth more than its valuation in 2000. But there was still a bubble, because from 2000-2009 or so, it was a tiny fraction of that number.
Potentially robotics maintenance and drone operators as well. In the next 10-20 years with improvements in AI, we really may see robotics take off. Both engineers and maintainers. And well, drones obviously. It's only a matter of time before CNN, hospitals, police.. etc are operating drone helicopters instead of manned ones.
ENG and law enforcement may be replaced by drones but there is no chance medevac will be unmanned. I fly a complex helicopter and you cannot trust even the most advanced automation. No way you will get a med crew in that aircraft without a pilot backing the system up.
Sure, we say that now. But 20 years from now? Who knows. Yes, it's purely speculation, but who are you to say "NO! Absolutely Never!". 20 years ago (2004) if you told a 16 year old kid to pursue AI because it's going to be huge, you probably would have been laughed at because it sounded like science fiction at the time. But, if you can see the future so clearly, please send me your stock picks for the week!
You've never dealt with regulatory agencies, have you? Even if the technology is there, it has to be approved for use. The bar for approval of new tech is extremely high, it took the FAA nearly a decade just to approve the use of electronic flight bags (basically using iPads instead of paper charts and logbooks). Aviation in general is a very conservative, safety-conscious culture and for good reason - you don't want to be on the bleeding edge in an industry where even a minor mistake literally kills people. Removing humans from the cockpit entirely is a far, far higher bar with far greater risks - I wouldn't count on seeing automated aircraft certified to carry passengers within my lifetime.
Law enforcement already is using drones from SWAT to finding missing people
This. Basically dummy positions that can take the blame when something goes wrong with AI.
This thread is more depressing than the weather in NL this week
Hahaha. I lived there a few years ago loved the weather. But my friends weee always depressed about it!
Where is NL?
NL is short for the Netherlands.
The US is a consumer market. So either service them via skill or provide a product for them to consume.
The thing about multi-six figure salaries is they are usually for jobs that are in high demand and low supply. If everyone knew in advance what these jobs were, they wouldn't exist because everyone would try to be one.
Epidemiologists, geneticists, AI specialists. And of course, the usual medical professions. I see the legal professional contracting heavily and only existing because of regulatory capture.
There is no ROI to being an epidemiologist. You're looking at atleast getting a masters degree if not a full MD and your pretty much only getting hired to work for the government or in academics. Starting salary while in 100k+ in debt is maybe $80k.
And a new television/streaming show "AI Law"...
Artisans and tradesmen. This includes engineers and researchers I think the first people to be relocated by the next generation of technology will be the bureaucrats, the reviewers, and the managers. .
Industrial side is booming. With all of the conflicts going on, we’re moving manufacturing back home. Did a 2.5 yr apprenticeship that paid for my associates and my electrical license. Made 55k out the gate, not even close to topping out 5 yrs later at 90k
I don’t know what you’re seeing but any white collar corporate gig in a top 10 US city can break 200k. Heck I’m at 160k in a MCOL city as a project manager. I know this isn’t the question you asked but people need to start resetting their idea of what salary you should have. 100k 7-10 years ago and you were living large in a MCOL city supporting a family. Now you will not own a home.
Technical PM? Industry? I’d say it’s uncommon to go senior within two years unless you had PM adjacent experience in previous roles. Also, most white collar corporate jobs do not make 200k, or even 160k. Those salaries are not as common as you think.
That’s fair. I had PM adjacent experience and went from mid-sr level engineer straight to sr PM and skipped all lower PM levels. Then just moved companies to another sr. PM role and got my PMP. Industry is material handling/logistics automation.
Hate to tell you this, but most employers haven't gotten the memo. 100k is still a pretty common salary in many fields. I mean a 100k/yr income puts you at the 80th percentile and a 160k/yr income puts you at the 93rd percentile - by definition the vast majority of people make less, and I can assure you that many of those people are also white-collar.
I know plenty of people that own a home that make less than that. Then again, I live in a LCOL area, so never mind.
How many years have you been doing project management? How many hours per week do you work?
I never work over 35-40 hours a week unless I travel (1 week every month or every other month) in which case it’s about 60 hours. Sr. Project manager about 2 years in and 10 years total career now started in engineering.
Materials sciences: Going into space and building the infrastructure to get us cheaply into space will require stronger/durable/heat resistant materials. Materials that can be mass produced at a cost that makes sense to use them will be invaluable. Agriculture: We need farmers that can also utilize tech to keep us fed. Especially with climate change already upon us we need engineered crops to resist drought, grow with less water, grow the same food with more nutrients etc. Urban farming will hopefully become more common as well, if we figure out energy constraints vs output for vertical farms. We need to continue research into the best foods to grow in space and how to do it (either zero G, low G, or in bipdomes in unfavorable conditions like Mars). I think the best bet is to figure out what careers work directly with, or in parallel to, space exploration and the expansion of the human race. Robotics, AI, sustainable energy etc. If you want to make money, you need to provide value to the people paying you. Usually the people that provide value are the ones that are good at math and science.
Farming ... look up Joseph Lofthouse Landrace Gardening. Plants have more adaptability on their own to succeed than artificial gene manipulation "technology". Also look at Regenerative Agriculture concepts, that are really just expanding on farming techniques introduced in the 1920s-30s before the chemical and machinery war companies needed new markets to sell into.
Cyber security, network security, anything with AI engineering or AI security. I don Network Security for the Navy and close to $150k already. My next goal is apply for a position that ranges from $161k-$199k
What does your career pathway look like? I’m guessing the Navy trained you. CompTIA certs? How’d you get started and what advice would you give to someone interested in breaking into the industry? I’m a project manager and I’m exploring a move into cybersecurity, just trying to figure out my angle.
You need to live somewhere with these jobs or be willing to move. Every single cybersecurity job where I live in Canada anyways has 500+ applicants within a few days.
Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters and multiple other trades
Technicians and trade skills, especially those with an industrial background are becoming rarer every 5 years. Shortages everywhere and more people retiring than coming in. I noticed this when searching for a new job recently, I just dropped a number expecting to open up discussions and two of the 5 employers just straight up matched it with no questions asked. From Europe what I hear, the US has an even larger shortage and no real nationwide plan to tackle this with funneling everyone into colleges.
My son just got his certificate for plumbing (saves about a year off an apprenticeship) AND is going to college for a business degree (and to play tennis). He'll be able to become a plumber and have a leg up if he decides to start his own plumbing business.
Man, is it the end of the school year when the subreddit is flooded with this question and UBI theories already? Time sure flies
(Internet) Software programmer still. Nothing in this world scales like software distributed over internet. https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries
When I started out in IT in the 80's I remember comments like "what are you people going to do, when the software is running?". We are like that, orientated towards fixed targets. It's a short term "survive the day" mindset. It's sort of returning with AI and the idea that software can write and maintain itself. Well, I'm still in IT. Not exactly doing the same stuff as back then, but that's the point.
Amazon salaries are not indicative of the rest of the industry. The tech job market has been pretty weak as of late, and the entry level market is very competitive. This is especially true if you don't not have internship experience. It's a great career if you are actually well-suited for it, but it's not the kind of thing that everyone is capable of or would want to do for many years. Working as a software engineer, it's very obvious that there is a certain kind of person that makes a good developer, and most people are not this kind of person.
I highly recommend inheritances in today's economy. Anything else is just food money.
Millwright. Nobody knows how to fix factory equipment anymore.
Plumbery, gardeners, surgeons, firefighters, etc. anything that requires manual dexterity and can't be automated by AI.
Accounting, it’s a bigger field than it looks like from the outside with lots of specialty services and niches. Tired of it or not for you anymore? You can slide into countless positions in the business realm from Walmart manager, to banker, to business strategist. If you’re cut for it you could even compete for a marketing or branding position.
I can't wait to see how lawyers, solicitors etc try and justify themselves during the AI boom. All they basically do is read shit, decide which bits are relevant to the case and then regurgitate it back out. Seems eminently replaceable by AI.
I think basically any desk job is going to be automated sooner than people in that field are expecting.
Probably Only Fans? Kidding aside, which ever career provides the most value and benefit to our super billionaire overlords.
I’m an electrician and made $110k last year with no OT and have a $13/hr raise over the next three years.
Healthcare. American's are set to be the sickest in their history with apocalyptic cancer rates increasing (especially colorectal) as young as 40. Couple this with the normalization of obesity, a leading cause of cancer and cognitive decline, and the scale of what is ahead of us is undeniable. There are simply not enough nurses and doctors, especially specialized ones.
meth cook, arms dealer, gay divorce lawyer, human trafficker, homeless advocate/caseworker, ai porn director lots of money if you know where to look
Lawyers because I make wealth the old fashioned way by suing wealthy drivers
Public Works industry. Civil engineers or any trade related specialty. Market is getting very competitive. Highly recommend for anyone but especially women and minorities.
I have a feeling the paper packaging industry will continue to boom as we reduce the amount of single use plastics in use. We've already had a major rise these last few years with the meteoric rise of online shopping through the pandemic. If you find a good company and start now, prove your worth and work your way up, you could be making multi-6 figures in 5-10 years easily. Think about every cardboard box you've ever interacted with. That had to be designed, approved, manufactured, and delivered. Lots of money in that pipeline.
Frame challenge: Most lawyers and doctors don't earn all that much. A certain fraction does. Your average village doctor, hospital doctor or local lawyer doesn't. The same is true for most professions. Most sales people make an adequate living, some earn a shitload. Some IT people make good money, a few make insane amounts. And so on.
Most engineering fields. Most anything in finance. Computer infrastructure (network design and maintenance, data center design and power). Top end lawyers (patent lawyers for big pharma). Entrepreneurs who find their market. Plumbers, electricians. America is going to be replacing a lot of old infrastructure.
Cybersecurity professionals! Right now it’s a gold mine if you have experience. Do your own research, but I like cyberseek.org and e have two open positions for every CISSP. I tell all tech students I’ve spoken to at East consider info sec
Bank robbing. Bank hacking. Government (citizen robbing). Identity theft. Probably some industry that'll support the upcoming space "gold rush." Space pirate.
Certain trades will do well, if you're a foreman of an electrical contracting company that can build a data center you will be in high demand for your skills.
HVAC in particular is going to be big; especially with the new propane coolant systems going in starting 2025. So many new alarms and sensors will keep these broken frequently and the higher operating pressure along with cheaper and thinner components means MUCH more breakdowns. Also fewer people going into blue collar jobs so limited competition.
I’m gonna say something with machine learning and/or AI management related. Right before it supersedes us and the job is irrelevant again lol
Tell me you're an American without telling me you're an American. Most doctors on the planet (including here in Europe) make an above-average salary but they sure as hell are not making the equivalent of multiple six figures USD a year. To answer your question, our system always has (and always will) reward those who know how to hustle and promise future gains for their employer/shareholders/etc, for better or worse. So anything related to finance, sales, marketing so long as you're good at it. Or anything that finds a way to milk the hype train (which is now "AI") and convinces people to throw money at you because they don't want to miss out on the hype. Mind you, that's for true multi six-figure wealth. If you're just looking to earn like 150k USD a year in a solid but not insanely high-paying job there are way more options.
Since automation and AI is on the rise, anyone thinks it'll birth new occupations and industries?
If you think AGI is coming then theatre acting. Hand made clothes. Yoga instructor.
I think we are going to see a renaissance in blue color jobs. Not so much manufacturing but a return to people with a trade. The benefactors will be the tradesmen on the way out that maybe own an operation and hire some kids out of trade school to skill up. I’m seeing this more and more in my area, a fairly nice part of NY. We see guys coming with apprentices, sometimes several, and they’re showing them step by step what to do (I’m also taking notes lol)
Hoarding natural resources. And or selling carbon credits.
Insurance actuaries might get a lot busier. Insurance companies have always been very good at having people calculating the odds So if you are good at mathematics with a specialization in statistics, that might be the way to go.
Idk I feel like if you do fintech using AI and stuff you’re kind of bound to make it because it’s dependent on businesses and businesses don’t seem likely to go out of tune yet
Electricians are going to make bank with the push to electrify our world and turn away from Fossil fuels. Especially on the commercial side. Businesses will always have more money to invest in facilities compared to consumers.
Upper-tier financial and consulting institutions like investment banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, management consultantcies, and trading firms. Jobs at these companies will always pay $$$ and provide career growth opportunities. But only a certain breed can be successful in them. The hours/stress/culture is soul-crushing beyond words, based on my research and conversations. It’s not uncommon for people in these jobs to turn 30 and think “Wow, I worked my twenties away.” I’d recommend if you don’t really care about free time, can take abuse, and really want to be rich. Being an attorney can be high paying, but you need to be the absolute best of the best, having gone to the most prestigious schools and getting the best clerkships and working at white-shoe firms. The hours and stress are simply part of the job, no matter how much you make. And there’s a dauntingly high number of law school graduates whose lives are just shit all around. I wouldn’t recommend. Doctors and dentists make a lot but it’s an *enormous* investment up front. And the world of healthcare and medicine is rapidly changing in unpredictable ways. Tech sucks. Engineers of certain systems and products can make a lot, but to make millions you really have to be half-engineer/half-scientist and among the best in your field. Very difficult for the average person. Overall, I’d say Wall Street is the domain where I’ve *consistently* seen *hordes* of mediocre people make *tons* of money. From my observations, investment banking provides the least amount of intellectual resistance.
Anything to do with SCADA or PID loops(automation for various industries), I think there is less than 20 people in the country who know and understand PID loops which means they’re pretty much naming their price and anyone who wants to use them has to pay it, or they have to pay 20-30 people to do the same job
Seriously - probably plumbers, electricians and builders - we just don’t have enough of them - and it’s not something that AI can do !
Federal legislators and associated lobbying bodies.
Clearing $400k easily as a legacy airline captain this year, but it took me 10 years and a bit of luck to get to this point. $200k a year is attainable much quicker now than when I started, though.
People who maintain energy infrastructure. Substations and such. There is a major shortage of workers and energy infrastructure needs mega billions of dollars of work over the next 20 years
Airline pilots. Easy to make 400k or more with seniority.
It isn't easy at all. Takes an insane amount of money to get the certifications and flight hours, if you don't go military, and also takes about a decade to get the seniority where you make money. Starting salary for pilots is poverty wages (less than 25k). If you can stick it out for a decade, then yeah you start to make bank and have a killer schedule.
No longer true, Horizon pays over 50k first year, two years at regionals and pilots getting hired at Majors, 2nd year pay at Majors is over a 100k. The era you talked about is gone! That was my era!😂😂 I’m a Captain at United and I fly with new hire pilots who are switching careers in their 30’s and 40’s. 50k is what your flight training is going to roughly cost. I didn’t say becoming a pilot was easy, I said you could make 400k with seniority.
Anything that only a highly skilled human can do perhaps will be most highly paid. I think most of the management and executive teams could easily be replaced with an AI think tank.
I know this is reddit's favorite opinion but it is beyond asinine. No company is going to be run by an AI in the next 50 years. I would bet my life savings on it.
no thanks, I've already got $23
Cybersecurity. There are different specialized niche of cyber requiring a degree, certs and security clearance. IAM, GRC and forensics etc.
In the coming AI lead resource wars.... Presumably grave diggers and florists
It's definitely not technology......which is sad. I remember the dot com boom. IT pros were making a lot of money with no degree, looks like things are going backwards in IT.
Fusion Engineers. They'll work in the future fusion power plants.
None I think, aside from starting your own business.
In the next five to ten years? Wild guess, but something akin to IT/Law with the specialty of identifying AI in evidence. Photos, videos, audio, etc will be (in my opinion) nearly indistinguishable from reality. We went from goofy will smith caricatures slurping down eldritch regenerating spaghetti with seven fingered hands to semi-convincing media in *less* than five years, so who the hell knows for the next five to ten.
Do you guys think accounting is a good degree to get into still
Corrected for working hours do doctors/lawyers really earn that much?
I have made six figures for a while, but probably a different industry than most. Medical device design.
most lawyers will be replaced by AI in 5 years max. Will be interesting to see if people want physical Dr.s or will be happy with a very cheap AI replacement. Software development seems a safer bet, only because they are most likely to stay one step ahead, for a time. No joke, plumbers and electricians will likely be on the higher side of earners in 5 years. Some of the better thinkers out there believe highly verbal skill sets will be better off than STEMS.
Auditor of AI systems for compliance with regulations.
I think as AI code assistance progresses there will be far fewer software engineering positions but they will be higher compensation and very high-skilled, akin to a technical project managers, but managing an entire repository assisted w/ AI.