Career Profile: Machinists

Salary and Outlook

According to the US Department of Labor, there are 342,600 people employed as machinists in the United States. The median annual salary is $47,730. Entry level employees earn approximately $30,220 per year and senior employees earn approximately $68,250 per year.

Estimates do not include other potential benefits such as health insurance, overtime, or retirement benefits that may be offered by employers.

Job Duties

• Operate equipment to verify operational efficiency.
• Evaluate machining procedures and recommend changes or modifications for improved efficiency or adaptability.
• Diagnose machine tool malfunctions to determine need for adjustments or repairs.
• Design fixtures, tooling, or experimental parts to meet special engineering needs.
• Dispose of scrap or waste material in accordance with company policies and environmental regulations.
• Confer with engineering, supervisory, or manufacturing personnel to exchange technical information.
• Lay out, measure, and mark metal stock to display placement of cuts.
• Separate scrap waste and related materials for reuse, recycling, or disposal.
• Check work pieces to ensure that they are properly lubricated or cooled.
• Support metalworking projects from planning and fabrication through assembly, inspection, and testing, using knowledge of machine functions, metal properties, and mathematics.
• Install repaired parts into equipment or install new equipment.
• Dismantle machines or equipment, using hand tools or power tools to examine parts for defects and replace defective parts where needed.
• Test experimental models under simulated operating conditions, for purposes such as development, standardization, or feasibility of design.
• Set up or operate metalworking, brazing, heat-treating, welding, or cutting equipment.
• Prepare working sketches for the illustration of product appearance.
• Calculate dimensions or tolerances, using instruments, such as micrometers or vernier calipers.
• Establish work procedures for fabricating new structural products, using a variety of metalworking machines.
• Install experimental parts or assemblies, such as hydraulic systems, electrical wiring, lubricants, or batteries into machines or mechanisms.
• Advise clients about the materials being used for finished products.
• Machine parts to specifications, using machine tools, such as lathes, milling machines, shapers, or grinders.
• Measure, examine, or test completed units to check for defects and ensure conformance to specifications, using precision instruments, such as micrometers.
• Set up, adjust, or operate basic or specialized machine tools used to perform precision machining operations.
• Program computers or electronic instruments, such as numerically controlled machine tools.
• Study sample parts, blueprints, drawings, or engineering information to determine methods or sequences of operations needed to fabricate products.
• Monitor the feed and speed of machines during the machining process.
• Maintain machine tools in proper operational condition.
• Fit and assemble parts to make or repair machine tools.
• Align and secure holding fixtures, cutting tools, attachments, accessories, or materials onto machines.
• Confer with numerical control programmers to check and ensure that new programs or machinery will function properly and that output will meet specifications.

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