Surfacing technician vs assembly technician

The differences between surfacing technicians and assembly technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a surfacing technician has an average salary of $37,226, which is higher than the $34,952 average annual salary of an assembly technician.

The top three skills for a surfacing technician include circuit board assembly, SMT and safety regulations. The most important skills for an assembly technician are customer service, hand tools, and lean manufacturing.

Surfacing technician vs assembly technician overview

	Surfacing Technician	Assembly Technician
Yearly salary	$37,226	$34,952
Hourly rate	$17.90	$16.80
Growth rate	-	2%
Number of jobs	39,793	52,385
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Associate Degree, 37%	High School Diploma, 34%
Average age	50	49
Years of experience	12	-

Surfacing technician vs assembly technician salary

Surfacing technicians and assembly technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Surfacing Technician	Assembly Technician
Average salary	$37,226	$34,952
Salary range	Between $28,000 And $48,000	Between $28,000 And $43,000
Highest paying City	-	Sunnyvale, CA
Highest paying state	-	Washington
Best paying company	-	Jefferson Lab
Best paying industry	-	Finance

Differences between surfacing technician and assembly technician education

There are a few differences between a surfacing technician and an assembly technician in terms of educational background:

	Surfacing Technician	Assembly Technician
Most common degree	Associate Degree, 37%	High School Diploma, 34%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	Stanford University	-

Surfacing technician vs assembly technician demographics

Here are the differences between surfacing technicians' and assembly technicians' demographics:

	Surfacing Technician	Assembly Technician
Average age	50	49
Gender ratio	Male, 75.1% Female, 24.9%	Male, 75.7% Female, 24.3%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 6.3% Unknown, 4.3% Hispanic or Latino, 10.4% Asian, 8.0% White, 70.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%	Black or African American, 11.0% Unknown, 2.6% Hispanic or Latino, 15.9% Asian, 9.8% White, 60.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage	8%	6%

Differences between surfacing technician and assembly technician duties and responsibilities

Surfacing technician example responsibilities.

Install and manage windows applications for the user, maintain servers and manage help desk operations.
Full knowledge of VCD machine, stuffing IC's into bare PC boards.
Program and operates AOI machine.
Assemble thru-hole and surface mount PC boards.
Operate under ESD guidelines and according to standard operating procedures.
Build and maintain programs for automatic inspection machines (AOI).

Assembly technician example responsibilities.

Manage the flow of each pallet to ensure the group is able to produce the quality product.
Perform in microscope SMT hand soldering to IPC standards and rework BTC components.
Use proper electrical discharge PPE (personal protection equipment) in ESD zone properly to prevent unexpect incident or damage device.
Perform electro-mechanical tasks using a wide range of electronic equipment.
Install switches, gfi's.
Rework (complex wiring) to CCA's according to ECO's.

Surfacing technician vs assembly technician skills

Common surfacing technician skills

Circuit Board Assembly, 15%
SMT, 14%
Safety Regulations, 8%
IPC, 6%
PCB, 4%
RAN, 4%

Common assembly technician skills

Customer Service, 26%
Hand Tools, 12%
Lean Manufacturing, 4%
Safety Procedures, 4%
Basic Math, 3%
Sub Assemblies, 3%

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Surfacing Technician vs Assembly Technician

Updated January 8, 2025

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