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Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers
Use hand-welding, flame-cutting, hand-soldering, or brazing equipment to weld or join metal components or to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products.
- Median pay
- $51,000
- per year
- 10-year outlook
- +2.2%
- Stable
- Typical entry
- High school diploma or equivalent
Key skills
- Quality Control Analysis
- Monitoring
- Critical Thinking
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Operations Monitoring
- Time Management
- Active Listening
- Speaking
What they do
- Operate safety equipment and use safe work habits.
- Examine workpieces for defects and measure workpieces with straightedges or templates to ensure conformance with specifications.
- Weld components in flat, vertical, or overhead positions.
- Detect faulty operation of equipment or defective materials and notify supervisors.
- Recognize, set up, and operate hand and power tools common to the welding trade, such as shielded metal arc and gas metal arc welding equipment.
- Select and install torches, torch tips, filler rods, and flux, according to welding chart specifications or types and thicknesses of metals.
- Mark or tag material with proper job number, piece marks, and other identifying marks as required.
- Determine required equipment and welding methods, applying knowledge of metallurgy, geometry, and welding techniques.
- Prepare all material surfaces to be welded, ensuring that there is no loose or thick scale, slag, rust, moisture, grease, or other foreign matter.
- Align and clamp workpieces together, using rules, squares, or hand tools, or position items in fixtures, jigs, or vises.
Majors that lead here
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS, Employment Projections) and O*NET, used under CC BY 4.0.