NJ Civil Service Navigator

Technical Assistant Family

Career series with 21 positions across 3 levels

In New Jersey civil service, Technical Assistant names a 3-level progression covering 21 distinct titles.

Entry is typically through Technical Assistant 2, advancing through the ladder toward Technical Assistant 3. Pay across the family spans $39,358 to $97,354, around the 27th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 384 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Treasury.

Technical Assistant is a common next step after Technical Assistant Evidence Handling.

21
Positions
3
Career Levels
7
Specializations
Salary Range: $39,358 - $97,354/year

Specializations

Civil Service Commission Department Of State Higher Education Insurance Labor Purchasing Treasury

Positions in This Family

... and 6 more positions

What the Technical Assistant family covers

New Jersey classifies Technical Assistant as a 3-level series holding 21 separate title codes. The family straddles jurisdictions: 20 state and 1 both state and local, so parts of it are hired by state departments and parts by local civil service employers.

Office support is where New Jersey's classification plan is at its most granular. Typing, transcription, stenography, records, reception and general clerical duties each became their own series, and each series then split into state and local versions, which is why the catalog holds so many near-identical clerical codes. For applicants this granularity is mostly good news: it means a lot of separate eligible lists, most of them asking for a high school diploma and no experience, and it makes clerical work the most common way people enter the system and then transfer sideways.

The ladder, ordered by pay

Sorted by pay instead of by title number, the Technical Assistant family stacks up as follows. Note that the numbers in these titles do not run in pay order. In this family a lower number sits higher on the ladder, which is a New Jersey convention that catches people out when they read a title list top to bottom.

Showing the 12 best paid of 21 titles with published salary data.

The distance from the bottom of Technical Assistant 2, Higher Education to the top of Technical Assistant 3 is $57,996, an increase of about 147% over the entry minimum.

What each title does

The specifications themselves are the clearest guide to what separates these titles. Here is how each one opens.

Showing 8 of 17 published definitions in this family. The full list of titles is below.

Getting in: the stated requirements

Across the 21 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as an associate's degree on 13 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 3 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.

On how the jobs are filled: 21 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.

Who actually employs these titles

384 people appear on the state payroll under 14 of these titles, at 21 agencies. Treasury alone accounts for about 26% of them.

  • Treasury — 98 employees
  • Motor Vehicle Commission — 78 employees
  • Law and Public Safety — 52 employees
  • Community Affairs — 39 employees
  • Corrections — 26 employees
  • Human Services — 17 employees

Those are the 6 largest of 21 agencies employing this family.

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $54,191 for Technical Assistant 1 Purchasing up to $81,320 for Technical Assistant 3. Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.

State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.

How the pay is set

The family is split across 2 salary schedules (A-P-R-S and V-W-Y), so two titles that look adjacent can be paid from different tables with different step structures. Bargaining is handled by CWA. Union contracts and rights are collected here.

Where these jobs exist

Because the family mixes jurisdictions, the answer to "who hires this" depends on the specific code. State codes run through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process; local codes are hired by the counties, municipalities and authorities that adopted civil service under Title 11A. Check an employer's status before assuming a title is available where you live.

Related titles elsewhere in the plan

Nearby in the plan, ranked by how distinctive the shared terms are rather than by how many words happen to match.

Families next to this one

New Jersey's classification plan links families by shared terminology and by the routes people actually take between them. These sit closest to Technical Assistant.

Common questions about Technical Assistant jobs

How many separate Technical Assistant classifications does New Jersey have?

The Technical Assistant family holds 21 title codes arranged across 3 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

How much is a Technical Assistant paid?

Published salary data for this family runs from $39,358 at the bottom of Technical Assistant 2, Higher Education to $97,354 at the top of Technical Assistant 3. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.

Is there a civil service test for Technical Assistant?

Yes for most of the family. 21 of the 21 titles are in the competitive division, which means appointment comes from an eligible list built by an open competitive or promotional examination.

What are the requirements to become a Technical Assistant?

The most common education requirement in this family is an associate's degree, named on 13 of the 21 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 3 years depending on the rung. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.

Which agencies employ Technical Assistant staff?

State payroll records show 384 people in this family across 21 agencies, with Treasury the largest at 98. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.

Is Technical Assistant 1 higher or lower than Technical Assistant 3?

In this family the lower number is the more senior title. New Jersey's level numbering does not run in pay order, and reading the titles by number alone will give you the ladder upside down. The list above is sorted by what each title actually pays.