Short answer
The job is mostly hand control and record keeping. Steadiness at the bench is trainable and is what separates a technician from somebody who has done a course; documentation is half the trade, because to an auditor an undocumented joint is one that did not happen.
Most of what is written about this job describes the equipment. Almost none of it describes the two things that actually decide whether somebody lasts.
It is your hands, and it is control rather than strength
A steady iron at the right temperature for the right number of seconds, a thousand times, without the thousandth being worse than the first. That is trainable, and it is the part a textbook cannot teach.
The paperwork is half the trade
A joint that is right and undocumented is, to an auditor, a joint that did not happen. Learning to record what you did is as much of the trade as learning to do it.
