How To Become A Mine Superintendent: What It Is and Career Path

What is a mine superintendent and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a mine superintendent. For example, did you know that they make an average of $29.71 an hour? That's $61,805 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 189,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreMine SuperintendentUS Average

Salary

4.8

Avg. Salary $61,805

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.6

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.11%

Asian 1.46%

Black or African American 5.95%

Hispanic or Latino 17.96%

Unknown 3.92%

White 69.61%

Gender

female 8.55%

male 91.45%

Age - 46

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 46

Stress level

8.6

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.4

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.1

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a mine superintendent

Explore mine superintendent education requirements

Most common mine superintendent degrees

Bachelor's

64.2 %

High School Diploma

14.8 %

Associate

9.9 %

Start to develop specific mine superintendent skills

Skills	Percentages
Equipment Maintenance	40.87%
Capital Projects	13.72%
Mine Planning	12.51%
MSHA	9.27%
RAN	4.57%

Complete relevant mine superintendent training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New mine superintendents learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a mine superintendent based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real mine superintendent resumes.

Research mine superintendent duties and responsibilities

Coordinate construction of new crushing/conveying system and lead MSHA inspections.
Promote safety awareness and prevention resulting in zero MSHA citations for six consecutive inspections.
Skil in dragline and land clearing for future mining.

Prepare your mine superintendent resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your mine superintendent resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a mine superintendent resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable mine superintendent resume templates

Build a professional mine superintendent resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your mine superintendent resume.

Apply for mine superintendent jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a mine superintendent job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do mine superintendents rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Mine superintendent reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Dec 2019

Pros

Looking over everyone

Cons

Being responsible when ur not around.for instant u go fireboss and ur down the belt and ur miner operator riding the back of the miner to cut coal and able to see and he slips off and gets hurt .so her u come back on section to find out what happened and how it happened and boom ur responsible even though u wasnt there.

A zippia user wrote a review on Oct 2019