Make 120K as a Machinist but feel like I don’t know enough
I work in DOD contracting and for the most part our work is simple as heck. All straight line cuts, occasionally get some work with features like chamfers and radiuses. The place itself is a massive disaster but it works. The processes are slow and taken “one step at a time” meaning one machine might cut a part to width and send it to the next for a feature.
We have some smaller work centers where you program by hand on tiny one-off parts but even that is simple as heck. A lot of the processes and setups are totally proprietary to our industry. I’d wager I know a little more than the average person out of school but I’ve seen some stuff posted here that really makes me wonder.
It feels a lot like being an imposter as a machinist. I think on a daily basis the most intense thing I deal with is indicating a part, making sure my set up is rigid, and then selecting tools for what are usually very simple processes. The components are of course valued at $500K-$9million in cost a piece. Most of the work is production meaning your work center will have about a dozen types of parts run on it regularly but they are all for the most part the same. You have peer-checkers who make sure your parts are setup right before you run them for the high $ stuff and sometimes rely on quality control for the same thing.
I’m not complaining, but it does sometimes feel like I am imposter. If you put me in a job shop it’d be like learning from scratch. I went to school and did all the cool stuff like making gyroscopes and derby car using CAD/CAM and now I’m on a manual machine from 1965 running straight line 1hr long cuts or simple radiuses we’ve already refined.
I’ve been doing this for 5 years. I’ve got a pension with the company, 401K match, make 96K base pay a year (120K after overtime usually). The only catch is they work the absolute hell out of is (as in constantly around the clock schedule you mandatory overtime with about a weekend off every month). As far as I know this sounds like typical DOD work. Also worth noting the turnover rate here is freaking insane, like we’ve lost 100+ machinists to either quitting or internal transfers over the past 5 years and we have a total of about 220 machinists at any given time. The place is desperately trying to hire but can’t find anyone competent enough to even do basic tasks without being juvenile and getting fired. Also everyone here hates their lives and wants to quit. To be fair we get jerked around by management for really stupid reasons and it’s almost like they want you to hate the place.
Anyone have a similar experience? I want to continue learning but I don’t think it’ll happen at this employer, and I’m making so much money doing easy work that I don’t think I could ever leave unless it was for a job that offered similar pay with more time off. I’m not posting to complain, I just want to hear other people’s thoughts.