As many office workers brace for the impact of AI disruption, a growing number of Americans are rediscovering the value of jobs that can’t be automated. From electricians and welders to carpenters, skilled trades are having a moment in a fledgling job market—offering six-figure paychecks, job security, and a career path that often doesn’t require a college degree. And for one high school dropout, the blue-collar track quickly turned into a six-figure career.
At the age of 15, Matt Panella was already up against a career conundrum: His now-wife was expecting their first child, and the teenager needed to make ends meet. His parents asserted that he needed to make money, but his school encouraged him to stick with the tried-and-true route of going to college. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Panella made the difficult decision to ditch the classroom for construction sites, becoming the next builder in his long family line of blue-collar workers.
“It was conflicting,” Panella, now 29 years old, tells Fortune. “Ultimately what I ended up doing was dropping out of high school—which I don’t condone. I went to work with my dad on site, who worked for another contractor at the time, at the age of 15.”
Panella started his career earning $8 an hour as a laborer on his dad’s job site, picking up trash, tidying up, and ensuring everything was neat and organized. Whatever the journeyman carpenters needed, the teenager was there to assist. He learned how to install hardware and roof systems by watching his older coworkers go through the motions. Over the following years he quickly climbed the totem pole—sharpening his skills through online forums—and came to recognize that he was staring down a lucrative career.
By 18, he was making around $18 hourly, and by 21, Panella says he was earning $30 per hour. And it didn’t take long for all the elbow grease and long 100-hour workweeks to pay off: By the age of 22, the entrepreneur was bringing home around $200,000 annually through his construction job and social media work.
The young builder has scaled a dedicated media following as @MattBangsWood with nearly 500,000 YouTube subscribers and 151,000 Instagram followers. And after working as a lead carpenter for years, he shifted gears into product and real estate. Now, Panella buys homes, fixes them up, and rents or sells them, alongside his new development projects in California—and millions are tuning in to learn from his journey.
Building a multimedia following alongside his blue-collar job
As Panella’s career was picking up steam, he decided to take his profession to the internet, posting YouTube tutorials on homebuilding. The then-21-year-old had a chip on his shoulder: As someone who was raised by a lineage of tradesmen, he wanted to pave his own path, instead of relying on his family’s generational home-building chops.
“I got told that I [was] silver-spooned the whole way—I just got handed everything. So I had this chip on my shoulder that I have to prove myself, because I am the son of multiple generations of carpenters and builders,” Panella explains. “I want other people to have that. I know that not everybody’s blessed with the same opportunity to grow up in a blue-collar family, and I know there’s a lot of people out there that want that same exposure.”
In 2018, he began posting carpenter tool belt reviews, tips and tricks on wall framing, and tutorials on how to install flooring. And shortly into his content creation era, one video on framing a wall went viral, raking in nearly 4 million views since. Within the first year or two he gained a few thousand subscribers, but the COVID-19 pandemic really ramped up his viewership. Everyone was stuck at home, and more people had time on their hands for handyman projects. Now, Panella’s 550 YouTube videos have garnered 118.5 million views and counting with a following of hundreds of thousands of users.
And social media isn’t Panella’s only side hustle. The builder is also working on a company called GEN1: software that streamlines and simplifies the construction process. He said the idea stemmed from a “dark time” in his personal life. Right after forking over thousands of dollars to an architect in the pre-construction of his own house—a big cabin in California, right near Yosemite—the designer unfortunately passed away and the plans became unusable. Now, he’s hoping GEN1 will help democratize construction: The AI-enabled platform will allow users to talk to the chatbot and build out the house they envision. Panella says the product is on track to become available to the public in July, which will be free while offering paid expanded options.
Everyone has a shot at getting into construction
Panella may come from a family tree of manual laborers, but he says even the most soft-handed office workers can break into trade work. In fact, tips and tricks on how to get into the career have become a popular inquiry from his audience, no matter their age or profession.
“I get a lot of messages from people telling me that they took the path that they were told to take, and now they’re at a point in their life where—say, [in] their mid 30s—they want to get into something that they actually enjoy,” Panella explains. “If you just clock in, clock out, and don’t enjoy anything that you do, I feel like you’re doing it for the wrong reason.”
As some professionals grow disillusioned with their office jobs—in-person attendance mandates, weakening benefits, and rampant AI automation—more are funneling into hands-on gigs. In fact, 62% of white-collar workers said they’d swap their career for a trade if it meant more employment stability and better pay, according to a 2025 FlexJobs report. And young talent is leading the charge: There was a 23% surge in Gen Z studying construction trades from 2022 to 2023, and a 7% hike of participation in HVAC and vehicle-repair programs during the same period.
Luckily even the most early-career and seasoned professionals all have a decent shot at breaking into the industry. No college degree is required, and any background experience will do—all jobs have some transferable skills. Plus, Panella says it doesn’t take long for construction workers to quickly see pay bumps, adding that lead carpenters can earn around $50 an hour in California (equating to about $104,000 annually). Average hourly earnings in the U.S. rests at $35.84 across all sectors, and in construction, the income rises to $40.52 per hour, according to a 2026 Indeed analysis.
“Depending on the career path that you had prior, it could lead you into an amazing career in the trades because of your attention to detail or what you’ve done,” Panella says. “Everything translates.”
“As a software engineer, you’re thorough. You make sure that things are done from start to finish—and that’s the same thing you need with construction,” he adds.
He’s also taking his expertise to the streets as a partner with U.S. power tool giant Dewalt, while working with community colleges to help entice more people to join the industry. And interest in blue-collar work couldn’t come at a better time. As of July 2025, there were 306,000 open construction sector jobs that needed to be filled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And thanks to the AI infrastructure boom, demand for the talent will only continue to skyrocket as the industry will need 456,000 new workers in 2027, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors.
“The industry is booming. We’ve grown a trillion dollars annually. We’re one of the top five industries. There’s money flowing everywhere,” Panella said. “The biggest thing is just finding something you enjoy doing.”
The post This home-builder dropped out of high school and worked construction for $8 an hour—by 22, he was making $200K from his trade empire appeared first on Fortune.
