Large-Part CNC & Naval Shipbuilding Jobs — What Newport News Shipbuilding Is Paying Right Now

Newport News Shipbuilding — the sole builder of U.S. Navy nuclear aircraft carriers and one of only two shipyards that build nuclear submarines — is hiring CNC and manual machinists right now, on a posting that pays more than almost anything else on our board: $28–$42 an hour base, up to $92,000 a year with shift differential and overtime, plus a $10,000 sign-on and relocation bonus.

That's not an outlier we're cherry-picking. It's what a specific kind of machining work — large-part CNC, on heavy equipment, for a defense-industrial employer — actually pays. Most job postings never mention any of that. This one does, so we're using it as the anchor for what large-part CNC and naval shipbuilding work looks like more broadly.

What "large-part CNC" actually means

A lot of postings bundle every machining job under "CNC machinist," but large-part work is a different job. At Newport News Shipbuilding, the equipment includes horizontal boring mills and large CNC lathes alongside vertical machining centers and manual mills — machines built for structural components and propulsion/ship-system parts, not parts that fit in your hand.

• Horizontal boring mills
• CNC lathes and vertical machining centers
• Manual lathes and mills
• Alloy steel, stainless steel, and structural metals used in naval vessels

The posting itself is upfront about what that environment involves: work in a large industrial shipyard, which can mean heights, confined spaces, and varying conditions — not a climate-controlled job-shop floor.

How that pay compares to the rest of the board

We pulled posted pay from every live job on our board and found a median of $33.50 an hour across 261 shop-floor postings, with a clear ladder from operator ($23.50) to setup ($33.00) to programmer ($39.75).

Newport News Shipbuilding's $28–$42/hr range sits at setup-through-programmer money — for a role that asks for 3+ years of machining experience, not a programming credential. Add the $10,000 bonus and the shift differential and overtime that push total pay toward $92,000 a year, and this posting is priced well above the board median for what it's actually asking candidates to bring.

Beyond Newport News Shipbuilding

Newport News Shipbuilding isn't the only large-part, defense-adjacent employer that posts on hireCNC, and it won't be the only one we cover here. If your shop runs structural parts, aerospace or defense components, or anything that needs a horizontal boring mill instead of a bench mill, this is the candidate pool this page is built for — union or non-union, it's the machines and the parts that set this work apart.

If you're a machinist who's spent your career on smaller work and are curious what a shipyard or heavy-industrial floor actually pays and expects, start with the posting above and the pay data linked below.

Pay ranges and job details above come directly from what's live on Newport News Shipbuilding's posting on hireCNC — not a recruiter's pitch or a survey. We'll update this page if the posting changes. Last checked August 2026.