A hotel maintenance technician fixes what breaks in guest rooms and public areas while the hotel stays open, from PTAC units and clogged drains to door locks and TVs. They also work through room-by-room preventive maintenance, test the pool and spa, and tell the front desk the moment a room can be sold again.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Annual pay: 10th percentile $30,680, middle half $36,240 to $49,030, 90th percentile $64,130. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
Reports to
Chief Engineer
Department
Engineering
Schedule
Rotating day, evening and night shifts · Weekends and holidays are part of the rotation, with on-call turns for after-hours leaks, outages and stuck door locks.
Also called
Hotel engineer · Maintenance engineer · Engineering technician · Building engineer
Hotel maintenance technician job description template
This is our Role Blueprint, word for word. Replace the highlighted fields and adjust the example targets and pay to fit your company.
Maintenance Technicians fix what breaks and service what keeps working in an occupied hotel. You'll close guest room work orders, run preventive maintenance on rooms and equipment, test the pool and spa, answer guest calls for no heat, leaks and lock problems, and get out-of-order rooms back on sale.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Complete work orders in guest rooms and public areas: plumbing, lighting, PTAC units, furniture, doors, locks and drywall.
Do preventive maintenance in guest rooms on a rotation: filters, caulk, drains, fixtures, TVs and safes.
Test and adjust pool and spa chemistry on schedule and log the readings.
Answer guest calls quickly for no heat or cooling, leaks, clogged toilets, dead lock batteries and TV problems.
Help with life-safety checks such as extinguisher inspections, exit light tests and fire alarm tests.
Paint, patch and touch up rooms and public areas between guests.
Lock out and tag out equipment before working on it.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Pick up assigned work orders and the day's preventive maintenance rooms.
Close each work order in [your maintenance software] with notes, parts and time.
Tell the front desk and housekeeping when a room is back in service.
Read meters and check boilers, pumps and pool equipment on your rounds.
Hand off open problems to the next shift in the engineering log.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Guest room work orders completed the same day: [your target].
Repeat work orders for the same problem: [your target].
Response time to guest calls: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[2+] years of maintenance experience in a hotel, apartment community, hospital or commercial building.
Basic plumbing, electrical, carpentry and painting skills, with [your own basic hand tools].
Can troubleshoot PTAC units, ice machines and common guest room equipment.
Follows lockout and tagout and ladder safety every time.
6. Preferred Experience
EPA Section 608 certification, or willingness to earn it.
Certified Pool & Spa Operator (CPO) certification.
HVAC, electrical or plumbing trade school or apprenticeship.
Experience with building automation or maintenance software.
7. Physical Requirements
Climb ladders, crawl into tight spaces and kneel under sinks and equipment.
Lift and carry tools, parts and PTAC units up to [60] pounds.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Day, evening and overnight shifts, including weekends and holidays, on a rotation.
Works in occupied guest rooms: knock, announce and leave the room clean.
On-call rotation for after-hours emergencies: [how on-call works].
Outdoor work on pools, grounds equipment and rooftop units in all weather.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new maintenance technician gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
Apartment and office techs fix the same faucets and fans. In a hotel the room is someone's bedroom tonight, and the front desk can't sell it until the work is done.
The work happens around sleeping guests
A tech knocks, says "maintenance" out loud and waits before keying in, even when the room shows empty. Drilling and other loud jobs wait until guests are up. A repair in an occupied room ends with the tech wiping down, picking up and leaving the guest's things where they found them. One careless visit can turn into a refund request.
A heating and cooling unit in every room
Many hotels heat and cool each room with its own unit set in the wall. Filters, coils and drain pans keep a tech busy, and a dead unit often gets swapped from spares. EPA's refrigerant rule names packaged terminal heat pumps among its small appliances, which are sealed at the factory and hold five pounds of refrigerant or less. Opening the refrigerant side of one takes a Type I or Universal Section 608 card. Source: 40 CFR 82.152: Definitions, including small appliance (Cornell LII).
Lock and tag, even on small jobs
OSHA's lockout rule covers work on equipment that could start up or release stored energy. A room unit that plugs into the wall is exempt if the tech unplugs it and keeps the plug where only they control it. Hard-wired gear, like washers, kitchen equipment and pool pumps, needs the hotel's lock and tag steps. OSHA wants those steps checked at least once a year. Source: 29 CFR 1910.147: The control of hazardous energy (Cornell LII).
The pool lift has to work
Justice Department guidance under the ADA says a hotel's pool lift must stay in place and work whenever the pool is open. It can't sit in storage until a guest asks. Staff should know how to run it and keep it working. In many hotels that falls to maintenance: charge the battery, test the lift on rounds and fix it the same day. Source: ADA.gov: Accessibility requirements for existing swimming pools at hotels.
Guest calls jump the line
A planned room rotation stops for a guest with no heat, a toilet leaking into the room below, or a door that won't open at midnight. At night there may be one tech for the whole hotel. They take calls from the front desk and check boilers and pumps in between.
How much hotel maintenance technicians make
The closest BLS group for hotel maintenance technicians is maintenance and repair workers, general. Maintenance and repair workers, general who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $20.30 an hour ($42,220 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $49,590 median for maintenance and repair workers, general in all industries. About 87,660 of the 1,529,700 maintenance and repair workers, general in that survey work for hotels and resorts.
Paid by the hour, plus overtime when call-ins or a heavy week add hours. Some hotels pay more for overnight shifts or for holding EPA or pool operator certification; put it in the ad if you do.
Hotels and resorts
$42,220$42,220 median Middle half $36,240–$49,030 10th–90th $30,680–$64,130
All industries
$49,590$49,590 median Middle half $40,840–$62,620 10th–90th $35,350–$77,180
$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k$80k$90k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Hotels and resorts
$30,680
$36,240
$42,220
$49,030
$64,130
All industries
$35,350
$40,840
$49,590
$62,620
$77,180
BLS groups hotels, resorts and motels as traveler accommodation. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Fixes plumbing, lighting, drywall and doors without a second trip
Troubleshoots room heating and cooling units and ice machines, and knows when to swap instead of repair
Follows lock and tag steps and ladder safety every time the job calls for them
Polite with guests, and leaves the room as clean as they found it
Closes each work order with notes, parts and time
Teach these on the job
Your work order app and how to put a room back in service
Pool and spa testing and the logbook your health department expects
Battery swaps and programming for your door locks
Your boiler, chiller and pump rounds
Running and charging the pool lift
EPA Section 608 Type I, if they don't hold it yet
Techs carry a radio or a phone running the work order app, a basic tool bag, a cordless drill, a drain snake, a multimeter and a pool test kit. The shop usually keeps spare room units, lock batteries and a programmer for the door locks. List your door lock system and room unit brands in the posting, since a tech who has worked on them needs less training.
Hotel maintenance technician interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
The template leaves the targets for you to fill in. Start from a month of your own work orders, and set them by shift, since an overnight tech working alone won't match a full day crew.
Guest room work orders completed the same day
Share of guest room work orders opened and closed on the same date, from your work order system. Read the ones carried over: waiting on parts, a guest in the room, or not enough hands.
Preventive maintenance rooms completed
Rooms finished on the rotation each week against the number planned. Spot-check a few each month for skipped steps, such as an unchanged filter or caulk that wasn't redone.
Repeat work orders for the same problem
Count work orders for the same room and the same issue soon after the last fix. Repeats point to quick patches, the wrong part or a gap in training.
Response time to guest calls
Minutes from the front desk's call to the tech knocking on the guest's door, from the time stamps in your work order app. Report each shift on its own.
Career path
HousepersonMoves furniture and supplies, and some cross-train into engineering on room projects.
Maintenance technicianHandles guest room calls and the room-by-room maintenance rotation.
Senior engineer or shift leadTakes the boilers, chillers and pool equipment and runs a shift.
Assistant chief engineerSchedules the team's preventive maintenance and fills in for the chief.
Chief engineerHeads the department, its budget and the fire and life-safety program.
Does a hotel maintenance technician need EPA certification?
Only to work on refrigerant, which means hooking up gauges or adding or taking out refrigerant. Without the card, a tech can still clean filters and coils, swap a whole room unit and take every other call. The apprentice exemption is narrow: it covers only someone registered in a federal or state-recognized apprenticeship, for up to two years, with a certified tech supervising closely the whole time. The card never expires, and the test must come from an EPA-approved group.
How much does a hotel maintenance technician make?
Maintenance and repair workers, general who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $20.30 an hour ($42,220 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $36,240 and $49,030 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Is apartment maintenance experience a good fit for a hotel?
Usually. Apartment techs already turn units, fix appliances and answer emergency calls. What changes is the clock: a hotel room has to be ready the same day, guests are strangers rather than tenants, and many hotels add pools, kitchens and laundry equipment. Ask how they handled make-ready deadlines and after-hours calls.
Can a hotel require maintenance techs to bring their own tools?
Many ask for a basic hand tool set. Federal wage law sets a floor: if you require employees to buy tools for the job, the cost can't drag that week's pay below minimum wage or eat into overtime pay. Some states go further. California's wage order for hotels makes the employer supply required tools, unless the worker earns at least twice the state minimum wage. Above that pay line, the hotel may require the hand tools common to the trade. List which tools the tech brings and which the hotel supplies.
How can you test a maintenance technician's skills before hiring?
Use a spare room. Ask the candidate to swap a faucet cartridge, find why a room unit won't cool, check an outlet with a meter and patch a small drywall hole. Watch whether they set up a ladder safely, shut off power and water first, and clean up after. A short test in a real room tells you more than a resume.
