this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2026
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I've gotten several job listings from Indeed that require CAM programming and access to a CNC. I have both. They're offering ~$135 per hour. The catch is that you use your usual work flow, make a part that your normally would and then remotely upload the results to this company so that they can train their AI to program CNC machines. I'm very against generative AI, but wow is that a lot of money for a 1 year contract. It took me 16 years to get good. Another 4 to make my own shop. But around 300k a year? It makes it hard. I'd love to know what other machinists think about this kind of thing.

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[–] lyrial@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Tool paths, video, and physical products.

[–] swicano@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How much of your artistry do you think are in those products, is one of the question I would ask. Is this "strap a gopro to your chest while you run around the shop" or "mount a camera at your big machine with tool changer that is spraying coolant everywhere anyway". Are the tool paths something you hand craft, or take a generated path and tune it to your machine?

I lean towards "get that bag cause whatever AI startup this is is gonna fail anyway" they probably don't understand where the complexity in machining lies, since manual -> cnc did most of the automation already.

And definitely get paid up front

[–] lyrial@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Getting paid upfront is not on the table - the offer is hourly. Which, is way better than the ~$20 I can ever realistically pay myself.

[–] swicano@programming.dev 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know how exactly it works for a machine shop but if it's a regular biweekly check that cool. I was thinking you would be working as a subcontractor delivering parts, submitting an invoice with net30 terms, then getting paid 29 days later, possibly 60-90 days after you started ordering materials for that piece for them.

[–] lyrial@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 8 hours ago

That is close to how it would usually work with a normal contract. But this is straight up hourly.