Power Plant Outage Manager: Plans and runs the few intense weeks when a power plant shuts down for major repairs, coordinating thousands of tasks and workers. Typical pay $135k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Hydropower Engineer: Designs and upgrades hydroelectric dams, turbines, and pumped-storage plants. Typical pay $100k.
Power Plant Operator: Runs the boilers, turbines, and generators that make electricity, mostly from a control room. Typical pay $99k.
Hydroelectric Plant Operator: Runs the turbines and gates at hydroelectric dams to make power and manage river flows. Typical pay $92k.
Power Plant Chemist: Controls the chemistry of water and steam in power plants to stop corrosion inside boilers and turbines. Typical pay $85k.
Gas Turbine Technician: Inspects and overhauls the jet-engine-like turbines that power natural gas plants. Typical pay $80k.
Boilermaker: Builds and repairs giant boilers, tanks, and vessels in power plants and refineries. Typical pay $73k.
Fish Passage Biologist: Helps salmon and other fish get past dams using fish ladders, bypasses, and even 'salmon cannons'. Typical pay $72k.
Lock and Dam Operator: Raises and lowers barges and boats through river locks and operates dam gates, often for the Army Corps of Engineers. Typical pay $60k.
Waste-to-Energy Plant Operator: Runs plants that burn trash or wood waste to make electricity and steam, shrinking garbage by 90 percent along the way. Typical pay $87k.
Coal Ash (CCR) Compliance Specialist: Tracks groundwater wells and closure plans for the ponds and landfills holding coal ash at power plants, under federal rules adopted in 2015. Typical pay $85k.
Power Plant Fuel Buyer: Buys the trainloads of coal, pipelines of natural gas or nuclear fuel that a power company burns, juggling contracts, rail schedules and prices. Typical pay $95k.
Starter: fastest way in
Auxiliary Equipment Operator: Runs pumps, conveyors, and support equipment at power plants and handles fuel deliveries. Typical pay $54k.
Power Plant Utility Worker: Cleans, paints, hauls, and assists skilled crews throughout a power plant. Typical pay $46k.
Dam Tender: Lives at or near a small dam, operating gates and watching water levels and the dam's condition. Typical pay $50k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.