HACKER Q&A
📣 badrchoubai

Tech Equivalent of a Trade Job?


I have a friend who is an electrician's apprentice, and I am so envious about how much he is learning and so quickly. He's truly learning by doing, and I haven't felt like that since I transitioned from self-teaching myself web development to attending college.

Is there any role in tech that is equivalent to working as an apprentice? Or is it going to simply be up to me to create that for myself, and perhaps start contributing to Open Source, or build a product (which seems to be a popular though on HN).

  👤 detaro Accepted Answer ✓
In some places (e.g. here in Germany) there are IT jobs that go through the same structure as "trade" apprentices (e.g. there are such paths for web designers. issue is that the trade schools often are not really up-to-date in what they teach, which limits the usefulness of that part). Combined university-and-work programes are also a thing with some large companies.

And less formally there are lots of companies that take people under the assumption they'll learn the necessary stuff on the job, especially in less-common tech stacks.

👤 maxrev17
I've just started my software business and will surely be looking for someone at this level to learn hands-on soon. Bigger companies will often (in my personal experience in the UK) take people on to train up.
👤 beforeolives
What are you looking for specifically? Aren't the majority of tech jobs some form of learn-by-doing?