SCADA Technician at Pellham Water Works: A Career Profile

A typical shift. Devon Amaru works at the water plant in the town of Pellham. His title is SCADA technician. SCADA stands for supervisory control and data acquisition. It is the computer system that watches the plant and lets an operator run pumps and valves from one room. Sensors in the plant send readings to that system every few seconds. This flow of readings from a distance is called telemetry.

Devon starts his shift by opening the overnight trend screens. He looks at tank levels, pump run times, and filter pressure. Then he compares last night's shapes to a normal week. An alarm goes off when a reading passes a limit called a setpoint. Devon reviews every alarm from the night before.

Some alarms are real, and some come from a failing sensor. To tell them apart, Devon walks out to the tank and reads the staff gauge by hand. A staff gauge is a large ruler mounted on the tank wall. If the gauge and the screen disagree, the sensor is the problem, not the water. Twice a month he calibrates the turbidity meters, which means he checks each meter against a sample of known clearness and adjusts it until the two match.

Devon also tests the callout system that phones the on-call operator at night. Once a week he backs up the control server. When a pressure transmitter fails, he pulls the old one, wires in the new one, and writes the change in a log. Every setpoint change goes in that log so the next shift knows what moved and why.

Getting into the role. Most SCADA technicians start with a high school diploma. Many begin as plant operators and pick up the computer side on the job. Others come through a two-year college program in industrial electronics or instrumentation. Some utilities also ask for a state operator license, because the technician changes settings that affect treated water. That license is earned by exam and comes in classes, often numbered I through IV. Each higher class asks for more years of experience and a harder test. Engineers who design these control systems usually hold a four-year degree, so the same control room can be reached by more than one route.

Pay and outlook. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish a separate pay figure for SCADA technicians. It does publish one for water and wastewater treatment plant operators, and many SCADA technicians begin in that job. Those operators earned a median of $60,020 a year as of May 2025. The lowest tenth earned less than $39,110, and the top tenth earned more than $91,060. The Bureau projects about 10,000 openings each year from 2025 to 2035 for operators specifically, not for the whole water sector, even though the number of these jobs is projected to shrink by about 6 percent. These openings come from replacing workers who retire or change careers. About one-third of the water workforce can retire within ten years, and in 2016 only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger.

Discussion questions

1. Name two tasks Devon does during a shift, using details from the Career Profile.
2. Explain how Devon decides whether an alarm is real or comes from a bad sensor.
3. The SCADA system in the town of Pellham watches 48 alarm points. In one week, 12 of those points set off an alarm. What percent of the alarm points set off an alarm that week?
4. Operators earned a median of $60,020 a year in May 2025, and the top tenth earned more than $91,060. $91,060 is about how many times as large as $60,020? Round to the nearest tenth.
5. The number of operator jobs is expected to shrink slightly, yet about 10,000 openings appear each year. Explain why, using the Career Profile.