“Translator competence” has received widespread attention following the “translator turn” in translation studies. Existing research has primarily focused on the classification of translator sub-competences, attempting to exhaustively identify all the abilities that translators should possess. However, the interdisciplinary nature of translation studies constantly expands the number of sub-competences, a situation that not only results in a time lag between translation research and translators’ actual abilities but exacerbates the current ambiguity in defining translator competence. This paper, based on the epistemological interpretation of translation and knowledge management and by taking generalized knowledge as the starting point for examining translator competence, proposes a knowledge-oriented approach to translator competence and conceptualizes all acquired postnatal translator competences as knowledge. It argues that translator competence comprises translational declarative knowledge, translational procedural knowledge and translational metaknowledge; translator competence is, in essence, an integration of structured translational declarative knowledge acquired through continuous practice and translational procedural knowledge that can be applied according to certain rules, and it is the embodiment of these two types of knowledge in translation activities under the management, guidance, and regulation of translational metaknowledge; the nature of translator competence development lies in the quantitative accumulation and qualitative improvement of translational declarative and procedural knowledge, the optimization of their structures, and the ever-strengthened regulation of translational metaknowledge.