What should a steamfitter job description include? (free template)

Duties and responsibilities.

Put the description in writing before the posting goes up.

The ADA treats the fundamental duties of a job as its essential functions, and a written description prepared before you advertise or interview is evidence of what is essential — a function can be essential because the position exists to perform it, because few employees are available to share it, or because it is highly specialised.

For a steamfitter that written list also becomes your interview rubric: it is what you quiz the hire against and what you grade the first ninety days on.

Copy the trade list that matches high-pressure work, then narrow it to your jobs.

BLS describes pipefitters and steamfitters as installing and maintaining pipes that may carry chemicals, acids and gases, mostly in manufacturing, commercial and industrial settings, with steamfitters specializing in systems for liquids or gases at high pressure.

The United Association's description of steamfitter work covers fabricating, installing, maintaining and repairing high-pressure systems that move steam, hot water and other industrial fluids — chilled water and compressed air included — with welding, rigging and hydrostatic and pneumatic testing in the mix.

Your posting then makes it concrete: the systems your crews run, the drawings and isometrics they work from, the joints they make up by welding, threading or grooving, the supports they hang, the pressure tests they run and document, and the coordination with other trades on an active site.

Say which split of the trade you are hiring.

Federal data rolls the trade into one occupation — Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152) — with both Steamfitter and Pipefitter among its example titles and Pipe Welder among O*NET's sample titles for the same code, and BLS still gives steamfitters their own specialization: systems for the flow of liquids or gases at high pressure.

So a single title does not tell a candidate what your job is: state the setting (the manufacturing, commercial and industrial work BLS describes, or your exception to it), whether the job is service and repair or new installation, and the systems by name.

If the posting is really a process-piping job that happens to include steam, say process piping; if it is steam and high-pressure work, say that.

Hiring a helper is its own posting — put the level in the title, and check your state's helper rules first: in Minnesota, an unlicensed helper on high-pressure piping may assist only if registered with the Department of Labor and Industry or in an approved apprenticeship and working under a licensed pipefitter.

The worker-side version of this question — what the job is like day to day — belongs to our steamfitter career guide; this page stays on the employer's side.

Physical demands, stated plainly.

Before a conditional job offer you may state the job's physical requirements — lifting a set weight or climbing ladders, for example — and ask whether the applicant can meet them.

Writing them into the description tells candidates what the day costs their body and gives you compliant wording to screen on later.

Licence and certification requirements — worded exactly.

Do not write a generic "must hold a state license" line: our research found no national steamfitter licence, licence names come from each state's or city's own files, and a requirement that fits nowhere reads to a working fitter as an employer who never checked their own market.

Where the work is licensed, the tiers are real and checkable, so name the class and the issuing authority the way your state or city does.

The steam-named licences our research confirmed are city licences: Omaha licenses steamfitters at the master and journeyman level, each by exam, and Minneapolis requires masters and journeymen in the steam and hot water trade to hold a city Certificate of Competency, for which applicants need at least four years of work experience.

In the states our research confirmed at the state level, the licence carries a pipefitter or mechanical name: Massachusetts licenses the work through a state bureau — a journeyman pipefitter licence takes 6,000 hours as a licensed OPSI pipefitter apprentice under a Massachusetts master pipefitter plus 450 hours of approved instruction, or equivalent out-of-state experience the Bureau approves, then an OPSI exam, and from November 9, 2026 a standardized pathway of a Bureau-approved 450-hour course plus at least 6,000 clock hours as a licensed apprentice, with a hardship waiver for the old pathway; Rhode Island requires journeyperson pipefitters to complete a 10,000-hour registered apprenticeship; Minnesota licenses high-pressure steam and process piping statewide as master and journeyworker pipefitters; and mechanical licences that include process piping (but not plumbing) were found in Michigan, Virginia, Oklahoma and New Mexico — New Mexico's MM-4 classification covers hydronic, steam, chilled water and process piping, boilers and chillers.

Check the title itself against the issuing authority: New York City's Department of Buildings lists its skilled-trade licences — Electrician, High Pressure Boiler Operating Engineer, Master Plumber and Welder among them — and "steamfitter" is not on the list.

So use the template's placeholder until you have looked up the exact licence name and class your jobs need, with the issuing authority named, and if the right candidate may qualify after you hire them, say so: "or ability to obtain within [N] days" is an honest line.

Before an offer you may ask applicants about required licences and certifications and ask them to describe or demonstrate how they would do a task — collect licence numbers on the application so you can check each one in the issuing authority's public lookup, a step our guide to verifying a licence before you hire walks through.

Welding quals are the other paperwork: ask which weld tests and procedures each candidate holds, and collect copies of the qualification records — "I can weld" is not a record.

Verify before you post.

Licensing for this trade is state and city law, and it changes.

Confirm the current requirements for your jobs with your state licensing board — or the city or county that issues licences where licensing is local — and treat this page as employer information, not legal advice.

The fuller licence map sits in our guide to how to hire a steamfitter.

Pay and pay-plan disclosure.

Post a real range — the low, the high, and how the plan works — because in a number of states the range is a legal requirement in the posting itself, not a nice-to-have.

Laws confirmed in our research (September 2026, from statute text or the state labor agency) to require pay disclosure in job postings include California (employers with 15 or more employees), Colorado, Washington State (15 or more), the District of Columbia, Maryland (for work performed at least partly in the state), Maine (10 or more, since July 29, 2026), Massachusetts (25 or more in the state), Minnesota (30 or more in the state), Illinois (15 or more), New Jersey (10 or more, over 20 calendar weeks), New York (4 or more, for work performed at least partly in the state), Vermont (5 or more) and Virginia (since July 1, 2026).

Delaware's law is signed but does not take effect until September 2027, and it will not apply to employers with 25 or fewer employees.

Connecticut and Rhode Island do not require the range in the posting; each requires giving the applicant the wage range on request — by the time of an offer in Connecticut, before pay is discussed in Rhode Island.

Our research did not confirm the posting requirement reported for Hawaii, and city ordinances were outside this check; our research produced no closed national list, so verify each state — and each city — where the job is located or where applicants will work.

The state-by-state detail lives in our guide to pay transparency laws by state.

Several of these laws reach past the number, so build the posting accordingly.

Colorado requires a benefits description and how and when to apply in every posting; Illinois accepts a hyperlink to a public page carrying the pay scale and benefits; Minnesota and Washington require a general description of benefits; Washington, D.C. requires the minimum and maximum projected pay in every listing and disclosure of healthcare benefits before the first interview.

If the job is paid on commission, say so in the posting — New York's labor department requires it — while Vermont goes the other way: an ad for a commission-based job need only disclose that fact and may skip the range.

Name the pay plan itself — hourly, flat rate, commission, salary, or a mix — and settle the overtime math before the posting, not after.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act follows the pay, not the label: a flat-rate fitter is still owed overtime — the regular rate is total job pay divided by hours actually worked, plus half-time for each hour over 40 in the workweek; commissions — including on equipment sales or service tickets — count in the regular rate; a bonus or spiff schedule announced in advance is a promised, non-discretionary bonus no matter what you call it; and the commission overtime exemption that can fit commission-heavy plans, section 7(i), applies only in a retail or service establishment, only when the regular rate exceeds 1.5 times the minimum wage and more than half of pay is commissions — whether a shop like yours qualifies is decided case by case.

Anchor the range to the market, then check it against your metro.

BLS publishes no steamfitter-only wage: its OEWS program reports one combined occupation, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152), so every federal figure is the trade band, not a steamfitter-specific number.

Within that SOC, the median wage was $63,800 a year ($30.67 an hour) in May 2025, with the middle half earning between $50,190 and $85,110 — and those figures exclude overtime pay, so a fitter who works heavy call-out hours can earn above them.

Hiring at helper level instead?

The median for Helpers–Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-3015) was $20.36 an hour, or $42,360 a year, in May 2025.

State-by-state numbers sit on our steamfitter salary page — use them rather than a competitor's ad.

Travel terms belong in the offer, not in folklore: our research found no primary source for typical per-diem amounts, and union per diem is set in each local's agreement, so write your own per-diem, lodging and mileage terms into the posting when the work is out of town.

Schedule, on-call, truck and tools.

State each of these instead of letting the new hire discover it.

Schedule: give the working days and hours and the honest shape of the year — BLS notes that most plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters work full time, including nights and weekends, and are often on call for emergencies, so if your rotation means standing night coverage or shutdown-week overtime, write it here.

On-call: say whether there is a rotation, how often it lands on one fitter, and how after-hours call-outs are paid — with that pay treatment in the pay section, not nowhere.

Truck and tools: say whether the shop provides a vehicle — and whether it goes home — or whether the crew meets at the shop and rides out together.

Say what the company supplies — the welding equipment, threading and grooving machines and consumables, the large and specialty tools — and what the fitter is expected to bring, such as hand tools.

If you fund weld tests, certification fees or licence renewals, name it in the posting.

Each of the problems below lives in the copy, and each is yours to fix before you publish.

No pay range.

Where one of the posting laws above covers your shop, a posting without a range is a legal exposure — not a stylistic choice.

A licence line that fits nowhere.

A generic "state steamfitter licence required" tells a working fitter you have not checked your own market — the steam-named licences our research confirmed are city licences (Omaha, Minneapolis), while the state-level licences our research confirmed for this work carry pipefitter or mechanical names, and licensing can be local.

Name the licence, the class and the issuing authority, or state plainly that you will help the right candidate obtain it.

Age-coded wording.

Terms like "young", "recent college graduate", "boy" or "girl" violate age-discrimination rules unless a statutory exception applies, and help-wanted ads generally may not show a preference for, or discourage, applicants based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age 40 or older, disability or genetic information.

Describe the work, not the person you picture doing it.

Questions the posting cannot ask.

Stating the physical demands and asking whether the applicant can meet them is allowed.

Asking about past job injuries or workers' compensation history before an offer is not — keep those questions out of the posting, the application form and the phone screen.

Referral-only hiring.

Recruiting mainly by word of mouth through a mostly one-group workforce can itself be discriminatory if almost all hires come from that group.

Post the job publicly.

Small-shop assumptions.

Federal EEO laws cover private employers with 15 or more employees and the age law those with 20 or more, but state laws often cover smaller shops, so check yours.

Federal contractors must include the equal-consideration tagline in job ads; many other employers add an equal-opportunity line voluntarily.

Screening rules you have not checked.

Background-check, ban-the-box and paid-sick-leave rules are set by states and cities and were not verified state by state in our research — confirm the rules where you hire before you screen.

Eligibility verification, before the first day.

While applications come in, check whether your state mandates E-Verify.

Florida (private employers with 25 or more employees, since July 1, 2023) and North Carolina (25 or more in the state) require it for new hires; South Carolina requires every private employer to verify every new employee within three business days; and Arizona, Alabama and Mississippi require every employer to use it.

The thresholds reported for Georgia, Tennessee and Utah were not verified in our research, so check your state's current rule directly.

Federal contractors covered by the FAR E-Verify clause must enroll within 30 days of contract award.

With the copy fixed, put the posting where fitters actually look: browse current steamfitter jobs to see the board as candidates see it.

Before you publish, run the wording past our guide to how to write a job ad for HVAC technicians, and when the replies come in, how to hire a steamfitter picks up the rest: sourcing, screening, pay and the first 90 days.

This page is employer career information, not legal advice. Confirm licence requirements with the issuing board — the state, or the city and county where licensing is local — pay-posting rules with each state labor department, and employment-law questions with an employment attorney.