Start sooner
Your next career can start tomorrow.
Self-paced online courses let you enroll and begin the same day, with no waiting for a semester. From there: technician, lead, supervisor, engineer.
What does a technician actually do all day?
Pick a job. Watch someone do it. See what it pays in Dallas-Fort Worth and who's hiring. No sign-up to look around.
Why this path
Start earning
Start earning while others are still deciding.
- People in DFW already in the work
- 12,730
The ceiling
Some of Dallas-Fort Worth's best-paid careers start with a certificate.
Get hired on the certificate. Add the degree while you're earning.
- Top 10%, instrumentation
- $103,880
- Top 10%, mechatronics
- $93,340
Step 1Not sure where to start?
Answer 10 questions. We'll point you at a job.
Ten questions about how you like to work, not what you already know. Takes about five minutes.
No email required. No follow-up sequence. Retake it as often as you want.
Question 1 of 10
Something breaks and nobody knows why. How do you feel?
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Jobs to explore
Tap a job to see what it's really like.
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Step 2Job Finder
Which technician job fits you best?
Tell us what you like to work on and where you like to work. We'll match you with a technician job and show you what it's really like.
No email required. Retake it as often as you want.
Question 1 of 10
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Back to your quiz resultsThe four jobs
Four jobs DFW plants hire for constantly.
Different days, different tools, overlapping skills. Train toward one and you haven't locked yourself out of the others.
DFW median pay
$63,380
- Texas median
- $61,930
- Top 10% in DFW
- $93,210
- Jobs in DFW
- 12,730
The largest of the four by a wide margin.
Most hiring now
Maintenance Technician
When a line goes down, you're who they call.
Diagnose it, fix it, get production moving, then find the problem before it happens again.
Growing 22% by 2034
Across Texas, about 6,380 openings a year.
Typical entry
Technical college certificate or diploma.
Where it goes next
This is the door most technicians come in through, and it opens onto everything: robotics, hydraulics, electrical and circuitry, controls. You don't have to know which specialty you want on day one. You'll find out on the floor, and the skilling is there when you do.
DFW median pay
$59,830
- Texas median
- $59,180
- Top 10% in DFW
- $81,930
Machinist Technician
You make the part that didn't exist this morning.
Program and run CNC equipment to cut metal to spec, measured in thousandths of an inch. Read the drawing, set the tooling, hold the tolerance, prove it with instruments.
Programming pays more than running. Same shop, same machines. The jump is the programming.
Dallas-Fort Worth medians · BLS OEWS, May 2025
Where you'll work
Aerospace, automotive, defense, heavy equipment.
Why people choose it
You hold the finished thing in your hand at the end of the shift. Precision work, visible results, and a skill that travels to any plant in any state.
DFW median pay
$52,160
- Texas median
- $54,460
- Top 10% in DFW
- $93,340
Robotics Technician
Somebody has to install it, teach it, and fix it at 2 a.m. That's you.
Set up, program, and maintain the automated cells and robotic arms running the line. When the robot stops, you're the reason it starts again.
Typical entry
Mechatronics or automation certificate, or maintenance experience plus controls training.
Where you'll work
Automotive, food and beverage, logistics, semiconductors.
The thing people get backwards
More automation has meant more technicians, not fewer. Every robot on a floor is a machine that needs a human who understands it. Everybody needs humans, even robots.
DFW median pay
$75,580
- Texas median
- $74,050
- Top 10% in DFW
- $103,880
Highest paid of the four
Instrumentation and Control Technician
You're the one who can read what the plant is telling you.
Calibrate and troubleshoot the sensors, transmitters, and control systems that keep a process inside spec: pressure, flow, temperature, level. Half diagnostic thinking, half hands-on.
About $12,000 a year more than maintenance
Most analytical of the group, and the skills carry into process control, automation, and reliability work.
Typical entry
Instrumentation, electrical, or automation certificate; strong overlap with maintenance experience.
Where you'll work
Chemicals, pulp and paper, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, energy.
Interested in something else? These four are the jobs DFW plants hire for most, but there are 245+ technician job types across energy, aerospace, logistics, semiconductors and more.
Job taxonomy: National Technician Role Library, Technicians of America
Technician Role Library →
DFW employers who hire technicians
What you get on every job
Same six things, every job.
No job page ships half-built. If it's listed, it's finished.
Day in the life
Real technician, real plant. Unnarrated where possible. No pitch.
Virtual plant tour
Walk the floor before you ever apply.
Pay and progression
Entry, mid, senior. Dallas-Fort Worth figures, cited.
Skills you need
O*NET-aligned, plain language, no jargon wall.
People doing it now
First-person, in their words.
Companies that hire it
Every DFW employer who hires for the job, posting or not.
Companies that hire for this job
Who hires this, whether or not they're posting today.
You're not choosing a job opening. You're choosing a career. So here's every DFW employer that hires for this job, posting or not.
If you're eighteen months into a two-year program, the question isn't who's hiring this week. It's whether these companies still need this job when you finish. That list is the answer.
- Vistra
- Brock Solutions
- Amazon RME
- Morton Industries
- Momentum Technologies
- Epiroc
Employers appear here only once their profile clears the minimum bar: a company description and a working careers link. No empty profiles, no dead links.
Employer profiles
Look inside before you apply.
Video, plant tour, benefits, culture, upcoming open houses, and what they're hiring for right now. Employers write and update these themselves, so you're reading them, not us.
Find your job
Two ways to search.
Most sites only work in one direction. If you're mid-program, "what can I do with this" is the actual question.
Know the job you want?
Pick the job, see the skills, find the training, see who hires for it.
Already have a credential?
Tell us what you've earned, or what you're halfway through, and we'll show you every job it qualifies you for. Including ones you've never heard of.
Come see for yourself
Walk a plant floor. Ask anything. Nobody's recruiting you.
Open houses, plant tours, and info sessions across Dallas-Fort Worth. The lowest-commitment way to find out if a place feels right before you spend a dollar or a semester on it.
