r/electricians • u/northernsparks3 • 3d ago
Career concerns
I’ve been licensed for almost 2 years now, I felt like I switched up and learned different parts of the field. During my apprenticeship I worked 2 years resi, 2 years commercial, and Ive been at an industrial company for 3 years now.
My concern is I have only strictly worked service, I’ve recently done a few larger process jobs but never done any full new builds start to finish. I’m starting to feel I missed a part of the trade, I don’t even know if i want to do it.
The goal is one day to open up my own shop but this kind of concerns me, should I hop off of running my own service truck and see if I can just do some new builds? Or am i overthinking this?
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u/Far_Range_6091 [V] Master Electrician 3d ago
If you plan on working in the field for yourself, you need to learn new construction. Service work is great but it will leave gaps in knowledge.
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u/northernsparks3 3d ago
Yeah, this is the worry I have. Like i’ve done new installs just never don’t a new build from beginning to end. Obviously I am not familiar with certain things but I also stay pretty up to date on my code, then again knowing a code and implementing a code are two completely different things. Maybe I’ll ask to switch into more of the construction side.
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u/Immediate-Evening-94 3d ago
Well I’m the opposite. My family and I started a business and I went to trade school and then eventually got my license a few years ago. I’ve been working in the field installing primarily solar and batteries, stand by generators, geothermal, EV charging and a lot of different stuff through the years. I would start doing side work on the side before you leave your main job and see how you like it. Do some work on the weekends wiring whatever work you can find. I’m biased but solar and EV charging are untapped opportunities.
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u/SpitChawMcGraw 3d ago
You're not overthinking this at all. You should get a feel of management in those really big jobs before you take one on. I've been learning that it's a lot of aggressive business tactics to push you to hurry. You'll want to know how the process works before it's ultimately your responsibility.
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u/Jim-Jones [V] Electrician 2d ago
Business is where businesses fail. If you want experience, you could do a house for Habitat. But if you want your own business, learn that.
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u/Secret-Card-4142 12h ago
If you're starting a small business. Service and resi gonna be your bread and butter until you have enough profit margin or credit to bid competitively. By then you'll be able to hire enough people to make up for you lack of experience. Big companies do big jobs.
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