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.
Tool paths, video, and physical products.
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