PurPassionCity

CNC Machinist

The pull to bring into existence

Creation · Nothing → Something

The shape of the work

Pace
  • A steady rhythm with room to breathe
  • A hard push you keep up for a long stretch
What your week looks likeShifts — mornings, nights, weekends on rotation
How much you move around at workHalf moving, half sitting — depends on the day
Whether you can work from anywhereMostly on-site, with the odd remote day
How quickly you receive feedback on your workYou know within hours
What you're actually working withNumbers, measurements, records — things you read on a screen / Materials, organisms, land, equipment — things you can touch

Behaviours this work is made of

Core
  • Hands-on, physical, direct production. Your hands produce something.
  • Quantifying what's happening so it can be reasoned about precisely.
  • Iterative diagnosis under uncertainty.
Also present
  • Taking something that works and making it work better.
  • Putting things in the right order so they happen at the right time.
  • Verifying whether something is true or works as claimed.

In words

A CNC machinist sets up and runs machines that cut metal or plastic into precise parts. CNC means computer numerical control: the machine follows a program that tells the cutting tool where to move. The machinist fits the raw material and the tools, loads or writes the program, runs the first part and measures it, then adjusts until the result matches the drawing. The parts might go into an aircraft engine, a medical implant, a car gearbox or the machine that makes bottles. Making is the pull: a block of metal becomes a part accurate to hundredths of a millimetre.

Measuring runs through the whole day. Parts are checked with micrometres, gauges and measuring machines, and small changes are made to the program or the tool settings until each one is within tolerance. Troubleshooting is constant, since a worn tool, a vibration or a change in the material can ruin a part. Experienced machinists can hear and see when a cut is going wrong.

Called a machinist or CNC operator / CNC programmer in most English-speaking countries. Entry-level machine operators who load and unload are often a separate job from set-up machinists and programmers, and the pay difference is large.

There's a guide here if you want one

Kitsune can talk through anything on this page — whether it might suit you, what to do next, questions this page doesn't answer. Everything here is yours to read either way.

The step from operator to setter and programmer is where the skill and the pay change. Operators mainly load and unload a machine that someone else has set up. Setters understand the machine, the tools and the drawing, and can get a new part running. Programmers write the instructions, often with software that turns a 3D design into machine code. The software handles more of the routine programming each year, so the valuable skill is knowing what the machine will actually do to the material. Mistakes are expensive: a crashed machine or a scrapped batch of costly metal is a real cost, which is why accuracy and care count more than speed.

Common routes are an apprenticeship, a vocational or technical college course in machining or manufacturing, or starting as a machine operator and being trained up by the employer. A school-leaving qualification with decent maths and the ability to read technical drawings is the usual starting point. Training to set and program machines takes a few years of mixed study and shop-floor work. Experienced machinists move to programming, tooling design, supervision, quality, or production and manufacturing engineering, and some open their own machine shop. Qualifications and apprenticeship structures differ by country.

Before you go