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Need Incom/Salary Ideas for Waterjet Operator

Hello I will be interviewing for a job as a waterjet machine operator and am wondering if anyone can give me some ideas as to what I should expect this position to pay. I currently have no experience and the company is willing to train the right person. I'd like to hear some ideas of starting out pay and what could I expect in 5-10 years. Also, any other info or highlights and even gottchas about such a job. I live in the Puget Sound region of Washington state if that makes any difference.

Thanks Lane

Reply to
Lane
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I don't know anything about waterjet operators and what experienced ones get paid.

I do know that if I hire someone with "no experience" in the job that they are applying for, I will offer them something between minimum wage and $9.50/hr. depending on their background and how trainable they appear to be. Also, after 3 months they get an excellent benefit package with full health and dental.

If my employee is good and accurate and quick, he can expect a 5 to 10 percent raise each year until he are up to or slightly above industry scale for an experienced person.

What you need to do is get skilled. Take the job if it's offered, take some evening CNC and CAD classes, show your boss that you're teachable and will make a valuable employee. If he doesn't recognize it, move along after a year.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

You can check with your local unemployment offices as they often track such data. However, Career Infonet does provide a somewhat out of data statistical information based at the state(s) levels. You would have to decide which area 'waterjet operator' fits. Select "Wages and Trends" from:

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returned 0 results, so you would need to determine what level of metalworking that would be categorized in. Yahoo returned 1200 hits for "waterjet career information". I would probably think about where it fits compared to other computer driven machine operations. Ought to give you a ball park.

Joel. phx

Reply to
Joel Corwith

Lane,

Salary. com shows a Machine Tool Cutting Operator in Seattle,(if the area is not right I apologize, I'm way over in Tennessee) having a median salary of about $29,000. This was just a quick and dirty search, I did not dig around to see if they actually list water jet cutters. Check the site out and you can probably get a lot better idea.

Regards, Jim

Reply to
Jim C Roberts

what part of Tennessee are you from Jim

Reply to
williamhenry

Chattanooga.

Reply to
Jim C Roberts

It's also going to depend on wether you just a machine loader/unloader or if you are going to handle the machine programming itself. A skilled programmer/operator is going to be paid significantly more than someone that just knows how to load raw stock and start a canned routine.

Craig C. snipped-for-privacy@ev1.net

Reply to
Craig

I agree with Craig 100%. I've seen waterjet operators that are extremely skilled, and able to very high quality work, get high tolerances, run more than one machine at once, draw up and program their parts in CAD, and squeeze every ounce of capability from the machines. For them, I would pay a lot more than someone who simply loads in a pre-made tool path, presses "begin", then unloads the parts without much thought or skill.

You may want to ask your question on the [waterjets] yahoo discussion group, where there are a lot of waterjet owners and operators at your disposal. See:

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Reply to
Carl Olsen

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