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Job Description

Overview

The Welder position at Bonneville Power Administration involves laying out and fabricating welded products in the shop or at various installations within the BPA system.

Responsibilities

  • Fabricate, assemble, and repair bus fittings from copper or aluminum based on drawings and verbal instructions.
  • Fabricate and pre-stress all types of bus from copper or aluminum.
  • Erect copper or aluminum bus in switchyards.
  • Fabricate and install oil lines on transformers and breakers at proper elevations.
  • Perform general welding on various materials including steel, stainless steel, aluminum, and chromium structures.
  • Select proper electrode alloys for the type of metal being worked.
  • Use electric and diesel generator welding machines, including heliarc, mig, and stick processes.
  • Perform silver soldering, plasma cutting, and oxy-fuel cutting.
  • Use heavy machine tools such as power saws, CNC guided plasma cutting machines, and drill presses.
  • Plan own work from written or oral instructions, blueprints, or sketches.
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How this job compares in Vancouver, WA

Pay in context

At roughly $72/hr, this posting sits about 141% above the $30/hr median for welding jobs across Washington — toward the top of a $28–$34/hr middle band drawn from 86 postings with published pay. Put another way, it pays more than about 99% of the comparable postings we have wage data for. Pay that far above local median usually comes attached to something: a harder cert requirement, travel, night shift, or overtime that isn't really optional. Worth establishing which before you accept.

The local market in Vancouver, WA

Vancouver, WA is a small market in our index: 1 other active welding opening alongside this one, from 1 employer. Across Washington as a whole we're tracking 106 other active welding openings from 68 employers. With this few local postings, most welders here end up either commuting or looking at travel work. Browse welding jobs across Washington.

Bonneville Power Administration currently has 1 other opening live in Washington, which is usually a sign of either steady growth or steady turnover — worth asking which in the interview.

The most active employers in Washington at the moment, by number of open welding reqs, are Welding Shop in Seattle, WA (12), All American Marine (8), and Parker Hannifin (5). Volume like that usually means either a genuine expansion or a staffing agency working several client sites — worth knowing which before you apply.

Within Washington, the best-paying metros we track by median hourly rate are Seattle at $38/hr, Shelton at $30/hr, and Bellingham at $30/hr. If you can relocate or commute, that spread is worth factoring in.

What you'll be running

This posting calls for MIG and Stick work. MIG (GMAW) feeds a continuous wire electrode through a shielding-gas nozzle. It lays down metal fast and is forgiving on clean material, which is why it dominates production and light fabrication work. Stick (SMAW) burns a flux-coated consumable rod and needs no shielding gas, so it works in wind, rain, and on dirty or rusted steel. That tolerance for bad conditions keeps it the default for field, structural, and repair work.

Similar openings near Vancouver, WA

Pay figures are medians computed from live postings in the Welding Pros index, not from survey data, and they move as employers post. Welder figures were last recalculated when this page was built.