NJ Civil Service Navigator

Technician Family

Career series with 10 positions across 2 levels

New Jersey classifies Technician as a 2-level family, 10 titles in all, built for step-by-step advancement.

Entry is typically through Technician 2 Commercial Recording, advancing through the ladder toward Technician 1 Fish, Game and Wildlife and, from there, into supervisory roles. Pay across the family spans $45,874 to $101,951, around the 31st percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 44 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Environmental Protection.

Technician commonly advances into Training Technician and Drafting Technician / Clerk.

10
Positions
2
Career Levels
4
Specializations
Salary Range: $45,874 - $101,951/year

Specializations

Commercial Recording Fish, Game And Wildlife Fish, Game, And Wildlife Management Information Systems

Positions in This Family

What the Technician family covers

Technician is a graded series in the New Jersey civil service classification plan, running 10 title codes across 2 levels. Every title in it is a state title, so the employer is a state department, commission or authority rather than a county or municipality.

Technology classifications age badly, and New Jersey's show it. The plan still carries titles written around tape libraries, keypunch and input and output control, sitting alongside newer series for network administration, database work and software development. For an applicant that matters practically: an older title may describe duties nobody performs any more while the position itself has quietly become something else, so the specification is a weaker guide to the actual job here than it is in most families. Salaries also drift furthest from private-sector equivalents in this group, which is the reason the compendium allows advanced-step hiring for information processing titles.

The ladder, ordered by pay

Ordered by what they actually pay rather than by the number in the title, the Technician rungs look like this. 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.

The distance from the bottom of Technician 2, Fish, Game, and Wildlife to the top of Principal Technician, Management Information Systems is $56,077, an increase of about 122% over the entry minimum.

What each title does

Each title in the family carries its own published definition. These are the opening lines of each one, which is usually where the difference between two neighboring rungs is actually stated.

What it takes to qualify

Across the 10 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a master's degree on 6 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 5 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.

On how the jobs are filled: 10 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.

Who actually employs these titles

44 people appear on the state payroll under 4 of these titles, at 13 agencies. Environmental Protection alone accounts for about 48% of them.

  • Environmental Protection — 21 employees
  • Human Services — 5 employees
  • Labor — 4 employees
  • Transportation — 3 employees
  • Treasury — 2 employees
  • Health and Senior Services — 2 employees

Those are the 6 largest of 13 agencies employing this family.

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $60,106 for Technician 2, Fish, Game, and Wildlife up to $94,062 for Principal Technician, Management Information Systems. 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 C-I-O), so two titles that look adjacent can be paid from different tables with different step structures. More than one union has members in this family: CWA and IFPTE.

Where these jobs exist

Hiring for this family runs through state service. Departments, commissions and boards fill these titles from eligible lists built by the Civil Service Commission, so the route in is an announcement and a filing deadline rather than a posting you apply to directly. What state jurisdiction means, and a breakdown of who employs what.

Related titles elsewhere in the plan

These titles sit elsewhere in the classification plan but share vocabulary with Technician, which usually means overlapping duties or a related eligible list.

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 Technician.

Common questions about Technician jobs

How many separate Technician classifications does New Jersey have?

The Technician family holds 10 title codes arranged across 2 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

How much is a Technician paid?

Published salary data for this family runs from $45,874 at the bottom of Technician 2, Fish, Game, and Wildlife to $101,951 at the top of Principal Technician, Management Information Systems. 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 Technician?

Yes for most of the family. 10 of the 10 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 Technician?

The most common education requirement in this family is a master's degree, named on 6 of the 10 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 5 years depending on the rung. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.

Which agencies employ Technician staff?

State payroll records show 44 people in this family across 13 agencies, with Environmental Protection the largest at 21. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.

Is Technician 1 higher or lower than Technician 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.