Scan our job board and you will see machine operator roles from $18 to $30+ per hour. The spread reflects how different these jobs really are. Here are the families you will meet most often.
Production / packaging machines
Feeding lines, monitoring output, basic changeovers, quality checks. The usual entry point — and where reliability gets you trained onto more complex equipment.
Extrusion
Plastic or aluminum is forced through a die into continuous profiles — pipe, film, trim. Operators manage temperatures, speeds, and tolerances. It rewards attention to process detail and typically pays well above entry level; our current extrusion openings run into the high $20s.
Blow moulding and injection moulding
The bottle- and container-making trades. Operators run cycles, trim, inspect, and troubleshoot. Moulding plants run around the clock, so shift premiums are common.
CNC machining
The top of the operator ladder. CNC operators load programs, set offsets, and hold tight tolerances on metal parts. Setup skills — not just button-pushing — are what push pay toward $25-$30/hr and beyond, and they are learnable on the job.
How to climb
- Learn the why behind settings, not just the sequence.
- Ask to be trained on changeovers and setups — that is where the pay lives.
- Keep a note of every machine you have run; it is resume gold.