Apprentice Plumber — Bellevue (WA L&I-registered apprenticeship)
Apprentice plumber position with a contractor in our network. The role is registered with Washington State Labor & Industries as part of a 4-year apprenticeship program — you accumulate the supervised hours required to sit for the journeyman exam while drawing a paycheck. You'll be paired with a journeyman in the field every day, learning by doing on real residential service calls across the Eastside.
What you'd be doing
- Shadow and assist a journeyman plumber on daily residential service calls
- Learn supply, drain, and gas line work hands-on through the WA L&I apprenticeship curriculum
- Help with water heater installs, drain clearing, faucet and fixture replacements
- Maintain tools and the service vehicle; pre-trip inspections every morning
- Document work with photos and complete required apprenticeship hours logs
- Attend classroom instruction (typically one evening a week) for the program
What you bring
- High school diploma or GED
- Eligibility to enroll in a WA L&I-registered plumbing apprenticeship
- Driver's license, clean MVR, ability to lift 50 lb regularly
- Reliable transportation to the dispatch shop and job sites
- Mechanical aptitude and willingness to ask questions
Skills we're looking for
- Hand tool fundamentals
- Basic measurement and cutting (copper, PEX, ABS)
- Reading service tickets and following journeyman instruction
- Customer-facing politeness in residential settings
Compensation and benefits
- Apprentice wage scale $22–30/hr, increasing on each 1,000-hour milestone toward journeyman
- Tuition and books for required apprenticeship coursework paid by the contractor
- Health insurance, paid time off, and 401k via the contracting company after 90 days
- Tools provided initially; build your own kit on the contractor's reimbursement program
- Direct path to WA journeyman exam at completion of 8,000 supervised hours
Schedule
Full-time field work plus one evening/week of classroom instruction (apprenticeship program)
What working in Bellevue looks like
Our network covers all 17 Eastside neighborhoods out of Downtown Bellevue. Most jobs are within a 15-minute drive. The highest-volume areas you'd rotate through:
- Crossroads plumber — Mix of 1960s-70s ranchers and 1990s-2000s infill. Galvanized service lines at end of life are the big pattern here.
- Lake Hills plumber — 1960s ranchers with original galvanized plumbing if never redone. The peak galvanized-failure window across all of Bellevue.
- Factoria plumber — Mix of apartments, townhomes, and the older Factoria single-family neighborhood proper. Multi-unit plumbing dominates the call mix.
- Eastgate plumber — Hillside neighborhoods with significant basement-finishing. Sump pumps are critical equipment for any finished basement in this part of Bellevue.
- West Bellevue plumber — Older waterfront and view homes with mature trees. Sewer maintenance and waterfront supply-line preservation are key here.
The core services you'd be running daily:
- 24/7 Emergency Plumbing — burst pipes, flooding, sewage backups. real plumbers answer the phone, 365 days a year.
- Drain Cleaning and Clog Removal — kitchen, shower, main line. cabled, hydro-jetted, and camera-verified.
- Faucet and Fixture Installation — kitchen, bath, shower valves, bidets. bring the fixture or we'll source it.
- Garbage Disposal Repair and Installation — jammed, leaking, humming, dead. repaired or replaced, same visit.
Background reading on the work
Editorial we've published on the kind of jobs that come through this dispatch. Useful context if you want to know what the day-to-day actually looks like:
- Where every shutoff valve is in a Bellevue home: main, fixtures, water heater, and irrigation
- Bellevue plumbing permits: when you need one, what it costs, and why skipping costs more
About the hiring contractor
This role is recruited by Bellevue Plumber Pro on behalf of our network of independently licensed Washington State plumbing contractors. Bellevue Plumber Pro screens applications and forwards shortlisted candidates to the contractor partner that will be the direct employer for this position. You'll be introduced to that contractor — by name, with their WA Department of Labor & Industries license number, and an opportunity to verify it at secure.lni.wa.gov/verify — during the interview stage. The contractor handles your hire, paycheck, benefits, and the WA plumbing license you'll work under. Bellevue Plumber Pro operates the dispatch network and the recruiting process; the contractor is the legal employer.
Apply for this role
Fill out the form below and we'll route your application to the hiring contractor. They'll reach out directly to schedule a phone screen — using the email and phone you provide. Please don't call the phone number listed elsewhere on this site — that line is for plumbing service clients, not careers.
Other open positions
Different role might be a better fit? Other current openings in the network:
- Journeyman Plumber — Bellevue Eastside — WA-licensed journeyman plumber, full-time, dispatched out of Downtown Bellevue across the Eastside.
- Service Plumber — Residential service calls, Bellevue Eastside — Mid-level residential service plumber. Focus on small-to-mid repair calls — leaks, fixtures, water heaters, drains.
- Master Plumber / Lead — Bellevue Eastside (crew lead, PL01) — Senior master-licensed plumber to lead a 2–3 person crew on complex residential and light commercial work.
- Drain and Sewer Specialist — Bellevue Eastside (hydro-jetting + camera) — Specialty role: drain clearing, sewer camera inspection, hydro-jetting, cedar-root intrusion work across older Eastside homes.
- Dispatch Coordinator — Phone, scheduling, and customer follow-up — Operations role coordinating residential plumbing dispatch across the Eastside. Not a field plumber role.