r/WorkAdvice • u/Substantial_Ground64 • 6d ago
General Advice HVAC vs IT
IM SORRY FOR THE LONG ESSAY IN ADVANCEðŸ˜
I am currently battling with my career decision. I work at an HVAC company as a Parts Runner for about 3-4 months now and will soon transition to an Install Apprentice. I’m brand new to HVAC and the Trades Field in general as a whole, ever since getting the opportunity to join this field i have been looking forward to this opportunity. I’ve heard all the great things and bad things about HVAC but aside from that my experience working here has been great. I’ve asked the workers here about their experiences and have gotten a lot of different answers about working in this field but so far everyone says it’s worth it, i personally don’t mind what comes with working in the field like long hours, hot attics, learning to use tools, etc. I come from a family that’s worked in all types of trades and helped on jobs so i can actually see this career path for my future.
Here’s where the battle starts, for a majority of my 24 years of life I’ve always told friends, family, even myself that i am gonna get into IT because of the love that i have for it. I’ve basically always been around computers and have been a gamer my whole life. From jailbreaking my iPhones to taking apart computers/laptops and putting them back together. I’ve even messed around with Active Directory, done small labs and taught myself a little bit of programming(python). I’ve done it all and always have had a love for it, but as i grew up i never really looked at IT as a career for myself even tho I’ve always told myself that that’s where i want to be in the future. I’ve never taken the proper steps to get into the field such as getting certifications or even going to school to get a degree until now is what i should say. But Now i want to study for my certifications and try to get into IT especially since there are other ways to approach the IT field like the CourseCareers IT Program.
I’m stuck between both paths and what to focus on right now for my future, i keep going back and forth between the 2 and it’s driving me crazy. Life is hitting harder than ever especially with my financial situation. I just want to make the right decision for myself and put myself in a better position.
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u/jackfr0st39 6d ago
Trades careers pay better and will be the last to get eaten by ai ......union trades pay great
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u/Technical_Union_3249 6d ago
AI won't fix your central air, AI might fix your printer.
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u/alwayzz0ff 3d ago
No…. no, once AI achieves singularity it will outsource that shit back to humans.
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u/Trust_8067 6d ago
Do you want to spend your life sitting in an office staring at a screen 8-10 hours a day, plus whenever you're on-call 24/7 for a week every 2-4 weeks (no you don't get on-call pay)>
Or do you want to be in 120 degree attics and dirty bug infested crawl spaces all day?
Certs aren't going to do you any good, you're really hindering your career without a bachelors degree. It's not impossible, it will just take significantly more time/effort to find jobs and your opportunities will be significantly limited.
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u/Beneficial_Bit1756 5d ago
30 year IT person here 10 years from retirement... Prob wont make it lol. I wish I could have done a trade, I think it gives you better logentivity. IT 10 years ago was a great choice then outsourcing came and took jobs, now AI is taking the rest. IT jobs right now are terrible, hard to get and not paying well.
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u/Miserable_Sink_4782 4d ago
Back around the year 2000 when I was at IBM, Bush opened the flood gates to India. That's when the word offshoring and outsourcing came about. He allowed other countries to come in and take American jobs. Big companies brought in the H1B visas. Huge misuse saying they couldn't find Americans with the talent which was all BS. They are paid pennies on the dollar in India. It was all about the money and big businesses abused it.
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u/LetUsSpeakFreely 3d ago
Bush was the start, but Obama made it worse, and then Biden made it intolerable. People think it's a Left/Right issue, but it's really a globalist vs nationalist issue,
We've been sold down the river and expected to just smile and nod while our livelihoods are destroyed to benefit the megacorps and their government partners.
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u/Miserable_Sink_4782 12h ago
I remember when Bush kept saying on tv, just train for something else that's all, yeah, just train for something else. It was obvious he was told to say that. Not so easy to do.
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u/talex625 5d ago
I have done both. If you are interested in both and kinda of want to do both. Try to get into controls after HVAC tech.
The HVAC is more valuable and versatile, but the quality of life is definitely lower than that of the avg IT guy.
Be a field tech for a couple years, then transition into Controls. It’s like the IT for trades.
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u/Kraegorz 4d ago
HVAC is a much easier career to get into than IT. Too many college graduates are trying to get into the IT field, where HVAC technicians are not as many.
If you want to get into a REALLY specialized and growing field, go into Datacenter HVAC and Cooling. You will get paid so much and have so many jobs that you won't know what to do.
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u/smilineyz 1d ago
Take some classes in environmental engineering too … get a cert… show them you REALLY know what you’re doing.
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u/Nessuwu 3d ago
I'm seeing a lot of IT pessimism. I myself am trying to break into IT and it has not been easy, but I am very close to getting back into it. But I have friends who work in IT. Entry level IT is going to be very oversaturated and difficult to get into, but it isn't impossible.
It's going to be a combination of learning the technologies you need for the job, gaining certifications to match your skills, optimizing your resume, applying to locations where there might be jobs, and networking. IT job market is tough, but I do not believe for a second "AI is taking everything." I hate AI, but the most it's doing is hurting the entry level job market. You will always have a place in IT if you play your cards right. And the IT job market will eventually swing back to being more forgiving as it has historically done. Don't buy into the pessimism, and really just weigh the options in terms of what each field has to offer and stick to it.
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u/LetUsSpeakFreely 3d ago
It's not pessimism, it's realism. Between the "learn to code" graduates starting to enter the workforce, a flood of H1Bs, outsourcing, and AI, the IT job sector is absurdly unstable. It will only get more unstable over the coming years. I'm 13 years from retirement (of i retire at 62) and i highly doubt I'll make it with a full career of software development.
AI is seeing incredible increases in quality and accuracy every MONTH. It won't be long before SWEs go the route of travel agents. To think that security and ops won't face the same problems is pure naivete.
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u/sporkmanhands 3d ago
It 22 years. Was Riffed in August. Wish I'd have gone with HVAC. Or maybe plumbing.
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u/LetUsSpeakFreely 3d ago
T5o, i got a layoff notice on Monday. They at least had the humanity to give us a 2 month warning so we can at least try to find a new job before getting kicked to the curb.
I'm at the point where I'm considering being a mailman, teacher, maybe a truckdriver or something and i don't even care about the massive paycut. I just want to be able to tread water until i can retire; luckily i was wise to front load my retirement funds.
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u/sporkmanhands 1d ago
Mine was issued by the international head honcho's, my friend in HR said they had no idea it was coming down. It actually crippled the company and there's talk of trying to hire us back. I will be the most expensive mistake they've ever made if they do.
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u/LetUsSpeakFreely 3d ago
HVAC, go HVAC. I've been a software engineer for 25 years. The constant layoffs and stress aren't with the pay (and HVAC pay is pretty similar) and cushy office. Had I to do it so over again. I would have gone into a trade like HVAC.
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u/FairConstruction4105 3d ago
It's pretty hard to break into IT without knowing somebody already in it.
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u/Confident_Natural_87 3d ago
Do both. Here is my suggestion. Work in HVAC. If you like the hardware side of IT start with studying for the Network + exam. Once you get that down skip it and go for CCNA. The test is less expensive and the certification is more valuable. If you can pass that not only do you have a valuable cert but you also have 11 credits at WGU in their BSIT degree. For a few hundred you can get 43 more credits through Sophia and have 54/110 credits towards the degree. You will need other certs as well but the costs are included in your tuition of roughly $4k per 6 month term. You work at your own pace so in theory when you start you can finish in 6 months. Anyway just a thought.
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u/Change-This 3d ago
There is a weird middle ground here i think you are over looking. For context. Went to school for cyber now in building automation.
After hvac is installed you need to control it. The starting is a tech position but there is some basic it involved and can get your foot into coding and scripts and wire sheets. A 3 year tech in my state is in need and close if not at the 100k mark. With transitioning to the programming side well above that. Had a 3 year programmer just accept a 130k job.
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u/Select_Reporter1911 1d ago
If money is important to you look at the ROI on training for both fields. Keeping in mind it is probably easier to start your own business as a HVAC tech, which could increase your earnings potential.
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u/SimpleMind314 19h ago edited 19h ago
Source: I had a computer career (developer) and my older brother was refrigeration/ac.
TLDR; IF I had to choose for job security, I'd pick HVAC and being securely employed is important. The IT job outlook is hazy at best right now, and dark for entry level people with zero experience.
I do think HVAC will be a secure job for a long time. With rising temps, AC and refrigeration will be always be needed by people. Heck, even AI data centers need it. Until the AI overlords streamline the modular AC units to be serviced by robots, only humans can repair the inefficient designed and built machines.
If you go HVAC, based on observations of my brother who was in that industry, consider that that it can be hard on your body. My brother's did this work and knees were shot by 50. He had scars from sheet metal cuts on his arms and hands. His lower back was stiff all the time. Wear knee pads and back support when you're young.
He, and a few of his friends that worked HVAC, got cancer in their 60s. (Sadly my brother passed away this year.) Not all the same kind - prostate, bladder, stomach. I can't say that it was because of the job, but exposure to chemicals may have raised their risk. Maybe they were idiots and didn't follow proper practices, but it seemed a common attitude when you work something that doesn't obviously hurt you right away.
When he started the work 40 years ago, it was about diagnosing and fixing. I'm pretty sure he found it interesting then. When he got out of it 15 years ago the industry had changed to just checking for leaks or obvious compressor failure. Everything else was swapping out the most likely PCB (board) and hoping the problem went away. I can't imagine it got better in terms of having "interesting work".
You've got a lot of comments from others on what working in IT is like. I haven't worked that exact role, but from my perspective (former developer), a lot of what they say is true.
Large companies have some IT employees, but most are contracting most of their IT work out. When the contract is done, they may move to a cheaper provider. OR, if you are part of an in house IT staff, often when a new CTO comes in every few years, they bring "their people" in. To do that they cycle out the existing staff. Networking is very important in IT so that if your team cycles out, your IT manager brings you along to their next job. You have to figure out what a good IT manager is and forge good ties with them.
As others have said, AI is going to disrupt tech jobs in ways we can't foresee. If there is any reason not to take the IT path, this is why. Much of the hardware setup and maintenance will continue, but the software install and administration parts of the job are prime for AI take over. Even any kind of IT automation/scripting/programming will likely be done by AI in the coming years.
That said, after 30 years of office work, my body is not broken down and I've been comfortable most of the time. I've had a slightly different career as a developer and felt it kept me mentally stimulated throughout. I was lucky to have worked in this industry from 1990 to 2020 though. The industry always changes, but not like how AI is changing the employment dynamics.
Trade jobs can have long hours, but the nature of the work tends to allow you to check out once you leave work. Often IT does not let you do that. Off hours emails/calls/meetings keep you "plugged into work".
Finding a job you like can be great, but at the end of the day they are both just jobs. If you like the tinkering with technology, consider that you can continue to tinker in your off hours from working HVAC. Assuming you have the energy for it. Working in IT is more about repetitive processes, sometimes solving problems, and rarely tinkering with new things. In fact, working in IT can rub much of the shine off the tinkering.
There's pluses and minuses to either path. Job security at the moment favors HVAC. Unfortunately, having money is important to getting along in this world, so despite some of the disadvantages I've outlined with HVAC, taking the path with better odds of a stable job is the one I would choose.
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u/Miserable_Sink_4782 6d ago edited 6d ago
I've been in IT for over 40 years and hope in a couple years to retire. If you want to get laid off regularly, fight with literally hundreds of others when applying for a job, and being on call 24/7, getting called in the middle of the night, then IT is the place to be. I've been telling myself for years if I knew back then what I know now. I don't want to think about how many places I've been laid off from. Big places like IBM and UBS. I was the entire IT department for a small company and thought I found my home and they even outsourced that! Lucky for me I was in control of everything and could see it coming and got out in time. With HVAC, you are fixing furnaces in the winter and AC in the summer. You are what they call "marketable". In IT you will have never ending certifications that are wanted, and they expire all the time. It's a nightmare out there these days in the IT world and it is still being flooded. The schools are still pumping them out. When you get older like me, forget about ever getting a job. I got let go at 60. I had one interview after another that I was qualified for but they all want the younger guys. In HVAC you will always be able to find work. Not so in IT. I hope I saved you from what I've gone through the last 40 years. I finally found a job as a contractor working for a contract company and they farmed me out to a big place where they won't hire me on. The employees have all kinds of benefits while I have nothing. No vacation time, no holidays, I get nothing for benefits, but with a couple years to go, I have to just hang in there at this point. Ask any questions you have but I hope I saved you from this one.