Working here.
Dental technology is a skilled trade with a genuine shortage of people entering it. If you are already in it, or thinking about it, we are worth talking to.
What the work is
Making medical devices that go into people's mouths and stay there for years. It combines manual skill, materials knowledge, an eye for form and colour, and the discipline to produce the same standard on the fiftieth case as on the first.
Technicians here specialize by area — model work, design, substructure, ceramics, finishing, removable prosthetics — rather than rotating across everything. That is how consistency is achieved and it is also how genuine expertise develops.
It is quiet, focused work with a visible result, which suits some people extremely well.
Who tends to do well
People with patience and good hands, who can concentrate for extended periods and who care whether something is right rather than merely acceptable.
A background in dental technology is the obvious route, and it is not the only one. People come into the trade from other skilled crafts, from dental assisting, and occasionally from art and design backgrounds where the eye is already trained.
What is hard to teach is caring about the millimetre. Most of the rest can be learned.
The trade in British Columbia
Dental technicians in British Columbia are regulated, and formal training routes exist alongside on-the-job development under supervision.
The trade has an ageing demographic and fewer people entering it than leaving it, which means genuine opportunity for anyone prepared to develop the skill. It also means good technicians are valued and stay valued.
If you are considering the field and want to understand what the work actually involves, we are happy to talk about it whether or not there is a vacancy.
Getting in touch
Write through the contact page or call the laboratory during business hours, and say what you do now and what you are looking for.
Current openings will be listed in this section.
What we can offer
Work on a genuinely broad case mix — fixed, implant, removable and appliances — in a laboratory that has been operating since 1988, rather than a narrow production role on one product type.
Specialization by area, so skill develops properly rather than being spread thin. And a working environment where quality control is built into the process rather than applied as pressure at the end.
The laboratory is at 5349 Imperial Street in Burnaby, open Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
For students and people considering the trade
If you are at the stage of deciding whether dental technology is for you, the most useful thing is usually to see it done. Watching a technician build porcelain across successive firings tells you more about whether the work suits you than any description.
We are glad to talk to people at that stage, and to arrange a visit where practical. There is no obligation and no vacancy required.
The trade has fewer people entering it than leaving it, which makes it a reasonable field to enter for anyone with the patience and the hands for it.
Where the trade is going
Digital design and milling have changed how a good deal of laboratory work is produced, and they have not reduced the need for people who understand materials, form and occlusion. Software proposes; a technician decides.
What has changed is the mix of skills. There is more screen work and more process control than there was, alongside the hand skills that still determine how a restoration reads in a mouth.
For someone entering now, that combination is more interesting than either half on its own.
How the trade recruits
Most laboratory recruitment in Canada happens through word of mouth, through the training programs, and through people already in dentistry moving across. Formal advertising is comparatively rare, which means the useful thing is usually to make contact rather than to wait for a listing.
If you are a technician looking to move, tell us what you specialize in and what you want to be doing more of. If you are earlier in your career, tell us what training you have and what interests you.
We would rather hear from someone good at a moment when there is no vacancy than not hear from them at all.
More about us
About Fairmont covers what the laboratory makes and who it serves. Our team covers how the work is organized and how technicians specialize.
Technology and equipment covers where the trade is going technically.