EXPOSED
This catch-all woodworking title covers shop hands who set up and run saws, routers, sanders and joinery equipment, read cut lists and blueprints, fit and glue assemblies, and inspect for grain defects and tolerance — work language models cannot touch directly. The real pressure is not chatbots but CNC machining centers, automated nesting/optimization software, and panel-processing lines that absorb the layout, cutting, and repetitive shaping tasks, shrinking headcount per unit of output. What persists is hand-fitting, defect judgment on natural material, custom one-off and repair work, and machine setup/troubleshooting in small shops where CNC capital doesn't pencil out.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. At 13 the split is real: nesting software and a 5-axis CNC will chew through the sheet-goods layout, dadoes and repeat profiles you now do on the table saw and shaper, but reading tearout risk in figured maple, shimming a warped panel flat, coping a joint that came out proud, and re-setting a jig for a one-off replacement part still take a person at the bench — that keeps it above the mixed midpoint without reaching the untouchable band.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. 16 reflects that nothing in this job happens away from the material — you are muscling 4x8 sheets and rough lumber onto machine tables, standing at a spraying or sanding station in dust and noise, feeling for glue squeeze-out and flush surfaces by hand, and working around unguarded blades and cutterheads; it stops short of 20 only because it is a shop floor you control rather than a roof, trench or customer's crawlspace.
No licence, no signature requirement. 2 is right because no state licenses woodworkers: you may hold an OSHA 10 card or forklift and lockout/tagout training, but those are employer requirements, and when a cabinet fails or a dimension is out of tolerance the shop's warranty and the contractor's specification absorb it, not your personal credential.
Some relationship component. A 6 fits the shop hand whose output leaves on a truck under the company's name — but the score is not lower because in a 6-person custom shop the owner and repeat clients ask for the person who did last year's stair parts or knows how to match an existing finish, so some of the work follows you rather than the shop.
Meaningful discretion. 7 acknowledges you make live calls the cut list doesn't cover — reject this board for a knot near a joint line, flip it for grain match, adjust feed rate when the router starts burning, decide a glue-up is close enough to sand out — but you are working to prints, tolerances and a foreman's sign-off, so the ambiguous consequential decisions about design, structure and price are made above you.
Has AI actually changed your work?