The qualifications are mostly physical: a physically disabled person* would necessarily struggle or be unable to do the physical auditing out in the field.
The regions involved vary wildly, depending on where infrastructure needs auditing (either because of catching up on the utility's own documentation, or updating a competitor's docs that they're buying out).
Medium to large cities of differing climates.
People in this role either choose to remain in a region for around a year, or move to various areas as a perk/"vacation".
I was introduced to it by what I found out to be a really disorganized and mildly unethical group, which is why I'm not currently out doing it!; looking to forge a new group with trustworthy people, who also know what a damn computer is!
*(but, if you're reading this and strongly interested/motivated, you may be able to assist on the documentation side or more!)
Thanks. I did some googling to try to better understand what the "meat" of a job like that would be and came up pretty empty, so it must be very niche. I'm guessing it's doing contracts for service providers, e.g. in California a customer would be Pacific Gas and Electric Company, eh?
There's adjacent work for any utility, but the type I was doing was cable/fiber.
The crux of the concept is receiving a map, sometimes partially completed, sometimes with partially incorrect information, and using easily placed symbols to make corrections for submission.
Whatever % of that you feel comfortable doing in the field, you do, with the remainder being finished wherever (often in front of a TV show, from what I saw).
A slightly more complicated (and nonpublic) version of contributing to OpenStreetMaps.
This is interesting and I will be keeping it in mind. I'm not actively seeking a career change, but the idea of solo outdoor survey-esque work potentially involving cycling is definitely appealing to me and I'm not wedded to what I do. Thanks for giving me something to ponder! If you want to get in touch or give me any info that's not prudent to put in public, here's an address that forwards to my personal one:
hackernewstemp@altmails.com
