Inside one coder's journey to leave tech and land a 'baby blue-collar' job

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Brian Gordon fell in love with coding. Over a decade later, the industry wasn't loving him back.

In March, Gordon learned that his company would be shutting down, eliminating his frontend developer job in the process. He'd read horror stories online about the job market for programmers. He'd also tried applying for a second job a few months prior — and found little luck.

"I need to make money," he told me in March, one week before his job's end date. "I have a wife, I have a two-year-old son, I have people I need to take care of."

Gordon began plotting his next moves — hopefully, he said, out of tech. His brother-in-law was a plumber, and he once dated an airplane mechanic. Both seemed to have better career outcomes than he did, he said.

I spoke with Gordon over the course of three months: before his employment lapsed, during his job search, and after he eventually found a new job far away from his coding woes.

Gordon wasn't a FAANG engineer or a coding prodigy. Rather, he was a member of the coding class who traditionally have made consistent wages to help keep the internet economy afloat.

Facing existential threats from increasingly capable AI coding tools and routine tech layoffs, many of those engineers are looking for an off-ramp. Here's how Gordon found his.

Part I: The Plan

Before his job ended, Gordon began drafting a plan.

He was used to career changes. As a sociology major in college, Gordon knew he didn't want to use his degree professionally. He spent years delivering pizzas before teaching himself to code.

His first stop was the Claude chatbot, where he looked up blue-collar gigs he could pursue. The AI spat back job titles like electrician, plumber, and HVAC technician. He wanted to work with his hands but worried some roles would be too back-breaking.

"I worked in construction for a while when I was 20," Gordon said. "I remember, at the end of the day, being completely wiped out. Do I really want to get into that again?"

His wife Andrea, a substance abuse counselor, told me she was open to her husband's blue-collar turn — but didn't like the idea of him doing hard labor like construction.

"He was not going to be happy," she said. "He'd been working from home in an air-conditioned room with a TV in the background. He had a relaxing job."

He continued researching, looking into roles like low-voltage electricians and water facility operators. He was drawn to the work of a CNC machinist, watching videos of them milling the metal.

Gordon also solicited feedback from those friends, his neighbors in Glendora, California, and people on social media. His blue-collar advisors gave him a warning: it's not so easy. There is a lot of competition, they said, and sustainable gigs could be hard to land.

A different piece of advice delighted him.

"They said the best thing you could do is go in-person, bring your résumé, shake hands with people, and there's a good chance you'll get hired," he said. "Where do you hear about that these days?"

Part II: The Hunt

A month later, Gordon had mostly given up on becoming a CNC machinist.

His friend worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When he asked about open roles, the friend said that the research center was in a hiring freeze. "Have you ever considered land surveying?" they asked.

He hadn't. One of Gordon's neighbors helped survey the land for central California's high-speed rail. They said the field was full of older people retiring out, while younger people remained scarce.

When another neighbor had surveyors come to reassess their property lines, Gordon got a taste of the work. He asked to shadow them — a process he said was fun, likening it to a scavenger hunt.

"It's a bit physical," Gordon said. "We're hiking around the hills and lugging around all this equipment."

Gordon looked into land surveying apprenticeships, but many only took on new applicants once every two years. His other apprenticeship interest — for electrician roles — had gone equally poorly. One opening filled up before he could submit his application; another expected months of wait time.

They said the best thing you could do is go in-person, bring your résumé, shake hands with people, and there's a good chance you'll get hired.Brian Gordon

Luckily enough, the friend at JPL had a father-in-law who worked in land surveying. He said he didn't have an opening — but was looking for a civil site designer.

This checked all of Gordon's boxes. It used AutoCAD, the modeling software Gordon taught himself in high school and was now relearning. It also wasn't fully physical, with about 90% office work and 10% site visits. "I think of it as baby blue-collar," he said.

Gordon sent over a résumé, knowing that his developer background wouldn't help much, but hoping it would demonstrate that he could work hard. His friend's father-in-law planned to talk it over with his VP and could reach back out anytime.

"The pay starting out obviously won't be as good," he said. "I'm going to be entry-level. It'll be a while before I ramp back up to what I'm getting as a web developer."

As for the coding jobs, he was still applying, though most ghosted or rejected him. One sent him interview questions, and another sent him an assessment test.

He wasn't sure he wanted a developer job, anyway. He trusted the longevity of these hands-on roles more. People kept telling him: "You're not losing your job to AI, you're losing your job to someone who uses AI." He didn't like the options.

"Great, I can be the victim or the perpetrator," Gordon said. "I don't know if I want to be in a field where those are the choices."

Part III: The New Job

On May 6, Gordon got the email: he got the civil site designer gig. His decade as a software developer was over.

His role would involve designing parking lots and drive-thrus for a fast food company, working with city planners. The hiring manager sent him home with site plans and blueprints, telling Gordon to look them over and make sure they didn't scare him.

"Ever since I was a kid, I liked looking at maps," Gordon said. "I came back and said: 'This is absolutely something I think I could do.'"

He asked about AI. He said he was told that they'd experimented with it, but that the tech wasn't developed enough to affect the jobs. Gordon said that the manager also mentioned that the field was understaffed, as many engineers were moving to industries like electrical or civil engineering.

Gordon was thrilled. The labor surplus was a significant reason he wanted to leave tech in the first place. "It feels like there are so many people who want to get in or stay, and the number of jobs isn't there anymore," he said.

There were sacrifices. The company was being "generous" and paying him at the upper end of the entry-level salary range — but that was still a 30% salary cut, he said. He spent eight years as a remote worker, but this role would require five days at the office.

Childcare remains the biggest challenge. His wife works a hybrid job, so the Gordons put their son in daycare for three days a week. Their son still struggles to be verbal, Andrea said, and he can't receive speech therapy from the daycare.

It took Gordon two months from layoff to start date, a timeline he was grateful for.

When I asked Gordon how he felt, he took a big breath. "Relieved," he said. After all the job-hunt horror stories he'd read, Gordon was delighted to have a smooth transition.

The pivot means Gordon has given up coding, both as a job and in his personal life. He also had to brush up on his math skills — something he did with "paper plans and a mechanical pencil," he said, as much of his work went analog.

Would Gordon ever go back to tech?

"Absolutely not," he laughed.