Manufacturing Technician

The title “Manufacturing Technician” is a pretty broad one, covering many different individual jobs. The basics, though, are that it’s a blue-collar job (so you work with your hands a lot) found in the manufacturing plants of different companies and industries.

No matter where you work as a Manufacturing Technician, you should be ready to use a combination of mechanical and technical skills to handle a variety of hands-on tools and computers. The hands-on tools you’ll use as a Manufacturing Technician include stuff like cranes, rollers, saws, and hammers. And the computers are, well, computers.

You combine these pieces of equipment daily to create things like tubing for a software company or engine parts for airplanes. Your responsibilities might include painting tubing created by a computer-controlled machine, or building a piece of equipment then informing the customer through e-mail that their order is ready.

In any Manufacturing Technician job, you do things like setting up and installing different operating machines, performing basic maintenance on them, and overseeing the specific computer programs that control the machines. You should be able to follow blueprints and work well with other Technicians, since this job is rarely done alone.

Since there’s so much hands-on work, safety is a big concern. It’s not uncommon for companies to require a hardhat and protective clothing. Also, you shouldn’t be too surprised if you end up working in extreme conditions (right next to a really hot boiler, for example).