Hacker News Reader

Comment by lilwobbly | Hacker News Reader

Body damage math isn’t even close. BLS puts non-fatal injuries in construction at 2.3 cases per 100 FTEs. For computer systems design it’s 0.1 – that’s a 23× gap.whole job takes a toll over time.

The median age of 42 just means a lot of sore 40-somethings can’t afford to quit yet. Age alone doesn’t tell you how their knees and backs feel after 20 years of rebar.

Not sure how many people you know in the industry but most architects, managers, etc... are 40+ years old. Not even remotely difficult to get hired as a senior engineer, way more in demand than 20 years old devs

View on HN

Here's the full table. [1] 2.3 is an extremely low rate for any job where you use your body in any way whatsoever. For instance it's the same rate as e.g. working in retail at a furniture store, and substantially less than the 3.6 rate for those working in retail at hobby/toy/game stores.

And yeah obviously software has plenty of room to transition into management and other late career roles. The same is true of the trades where common later stage transitions involve starting your own shop (with a career of connections/clients made it's not the big undertaking it might sound) or moving onto teaching. But it's the same problem in both cases, a small minority of people will achieve such transitions.

[1] - https://www.bls.gov/iif/nonfatal-injuries-and-illnesses-tabl...

Sitting in a chair is also pretty terrible for your health. :)

The difference is one can then workout or take breaks, stand, or a variety of things to offset the sitting/sedentary time.

The trades can really destroy your body and there isn't really a way around this besides changing the working conditions.

The problems aren't in the regular physical work. Our bodies were made to work and get stronger and more resilient with exertion. An average tradesman without some secondary issue like alcoholism is going to be in far better shape than your average programmer. The issue is that in the trades, and any physical work, there's always a chance of some freak accident. Fortunately these are extremely rare, and getting ever rarer over time, but they do exist. By contrast in software the worst somebody's going to have is falling out of their chair or slipping on the floor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com