I will caution you, price does not in any way directly correlate to quality of work. I have hired people who undercharge (at least in relation to the quality of their work) for several reasons: because they don't know what the market will bear; they enjoy the work and don't care; they are just starting out and need referrals; they are a one-man-shop and still make more than they would as someone else's employee.

In fact- I've found that often times, price inversely correlates with quality of work. Perhaps it may reverse again once you reach a certain inflection point where you're paying for a lot of 'white glove' service and someone who is willing to take abuse from very demanding clients.

I mean, like with everything these rules aren't 100%. That's just been my experience over the last decade across several renovation projects, some successful, and some catastrophic disaster. In this city, it seems like the good ones make names for themselves very _very_ quickly.

My painter is an exception... I've been tipping him like 50% because he undercharges like crazy but does absolutely amazing work. Maybe he'll get the hint eventually (I don't like underpaying people who do great work for me).

Honestly I think those categories apply to most jobs. Just look at all the posts on here about 10x and 100x developers.

Some people are amazing at their jobs, some are scammers/incompetent/full of BS, most are in the middle.

The "most are in the middle" category does seem to be missing from a lot of trades, though. I can echo GP's comment about carpenters, flooring, masons, electricians, plumbers. Everyone is either absolutely amazing, honest, and truly cares about their craftsmanship, OR, they'll show up late and do shit work. I can't think of a single middle-of-the-road contractor I've ever hired to work on my property, and I've hired A LOT the last 5 years.

I think the bias in analyzing these is that when it comes to hiring, I'm more likely to deal with an individual carpenter than an individual programmer.

With that said, I echo what another poster said. In the trades, it really feels like "the middle" is much, much rarer. Unlike, let say, programming, trades are usually an understood problem, where most of the challenge is in the execution (except for the design phase). That means after doing it for 15 years, people who are legit are actually REALLY good at it.

As a software engineer, Im not sure I've ever done the same thing (or even similar things) twice within a year or even a decade at times...

Completely true. Just look at the research around active management. Most outperform before fees, but after fees slightly under-perform. This is the equivalent to most employees add value before salary and benefits, but probably add less value to a company than their total comp plus expenses.