Dirty little secret about engineering?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>I do not have much time to throw together this post with links or anything but I've been meaning to just get this question out there because I want to know your thoughts:</p>

<p>After reading various sources about career progression between engineers and say business majors, a common recurrent theme seems to emerge: although engineers begin with slightly higher salaries than business majors, if you examine the long term trends, it seems that business majors wind up with higher salaries and more stable/secure management positions while older engineers become "commodities" and burdensome as their salaries slowly rise. </p>

<p>Furthermore, because engineering work is highly technical, we all now about the outsourcing and offshoring of their work.</p>

<p>I am an engineering student and I interact with many engineers from many engineering disciplines- it strikes me how many of them seem to be utterly unaware of this trend.</p>

<p>Before I began my engineering program, I did one full semester at my university's business school. I am now almost mid-way through my engineering program and based on my assessment, the effort, ability, and discipline required in achieving either a BCOMM vs a BENG are like night and day. </p>

<p>My first semester of business was hopelessly easy while we learned how to write memos and discuss contemporary business thought, whereas my first year of engineering was full of brutal, merciless weed-out classes that required hours upon hours of study. </p>

<p>This thread is not intended to bash the BCOMM, as the finance/accounting classes are legit, IMO. But I must say that am "irked" for lack of a better word about the "secret" career progression trends between the two majors as I am now quite aware of the effort and sacrifice required for the average individual to complete a BENG with good grades in a reasonable amount of time.</p>

<p>I am aware of the fact that the above scenario does not apply to everyone- but the stories of engineers earning pitifully low salaries compared to their business counter-parts 10 to 20 years down the line and being laid off by the same people is rather disconcerting.</p>

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<p>That’s why my husband and I started our own consulting business (structural engineering). When we worked for other firms, we both got laid off frequently. We also got tired of being paid just a small fraction of the firm’s hourly billing rate. So we’ve had our company for 10 1/2 years and never regretted it. We both got our master’s degrees in 1986. We would never want to work for anyone else again.</p>

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<p>Any engineer who does not become a “lifetime” student will face being laid off. What an engineer needs to do is keep his/her “ear to the street” as far as the next/latest technology in their engineering area (or other engineering areas) and become an expert and/or certified in it and “ride the wave” until the next technology comes out.</p>

<p>Right now I “rotate” between doing systems engineering work, project management work and my specialty…database systems. When I get tired of doing SQL and Oracle tablespaces, I’ll go use my PMP and project manage awhile. When the thirst for design/developing comes back, I’ll go back to data architecture. When I just want to be high-level with requirements and design, I’ll function in a systems engineer role. I doubt I’ll crack $200K/year (unless I go independent contractor), but I like getting recruiter calls during the recession and after being in engineering 20 years.</p>

<p>As far as working in Business. There are more people in it which leads to more competition. Me?..I don’t want to compete to earn a living.</p>

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<p>Do they? The BLS has top salaries for purchasing managers around $50,000. Financial managers run from $90,000 - $115,000. HR managers top out at $80,000 - $95,000. Production runs around $95,000. Marketing does better and ranges from $110,000 to $125,000. Accountants are in the $60,000’s and management analysts are in the $80,000’s. Meanwhile a principal engineer (highly experienced) makes $110,000 - $120,000. So numbers are averaged over the country, so people living in NYC will obviously make more, while people in Arkansas make less. Those are also upper quartile numbers, so while there may be some people making much more than that, those are above average performers.</p>

<p>So I would dispute that business majors make more long term. They have a higher ceiling for the very top performers, but the vast majority of business majors start lower than engineers and end about the same. If you integrate over that curve, it means less money over their career.</p>

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<p>“older engineers” usually aren’t engineers anymore. After 10-15 years, the majority (more than half) of engineers have moved into a middle or upper management role. Those that are left behind are either subpar performers or are people that prefer the low-stress technical career path. Those that are on a technical career path and are good at their field either become subject matter experts and are usually promoted to “technical consultant” or into a research position. Those left behind - the 60 year old principals - are usually the poor performers. It’s not really fair to compare those poor performers to the entire body of business graduates.</p>

<p>Actually, that’s one of the benefits of engineering. If you’re a bad engineer, you still have a career path, a job, and a salary. On the other hand, if you’re bad in most business roles, you’re out on the street.</p>

<p>Three other things to keep in mind: (1) you can go from engineering to business, but not backwards. An engineering graduate can easily earn an MBA and go into the business world. A BBA graduate cannot do the same with a M.Eng. (2) Engineers have more options earlier in their career. Consulting firms, investment banks, business schools, law schools, medical schools, etc. all love engineers because of the analytical skills required to succeed in engineering. All else being equal, an Iowa State engineer has a better chance to get into HBS than an Iowa State business major. (3) Engineering is more of a meritocracy than business. If you want a well paying job (or a job at all these days), you need to go to a top ranking business school. On the other hand, even unranked engineering schools have no problem placing their graduates in well paying positions. Once you have your foot in the door at a major company, you can work your way up. In business, that’s not as true (performance is more subjectively measured).</p>

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<p>You don’t think business roles are also being outsourced? Every time a manufacturer opens a plant in China, a whole bunch of management and oversight positions go with it. Not to mention that there are now analyst and accounting firms opening in India and Eastern Europe.</p>

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The majority of these people are students without real work experience, who think they’ve figured out the world, and people actually listen to them?..</p>

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<p>Well, G.P. already crucified the entire point of this thread.</p>

<p>Engineering is not the highest earning career, however it’s probably the highest earning career that isn’t a “winner takes all” economic contest. Certain professions have far higher ceilings, but overall, the median is probably significantly worse than engineering.</p>

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<p>My h is a principal engineer, working his way up from engineer to senior engineer to principal. He’s chosen to remain in the technical track, as opposed to some of this colleagues who’ve gone the more management end of things. Whenever there’s been downsizing at his company … it’s usually the “middle managers” who end up going. H is in his mid-50’s and is doing more specialized engineering work each year, and he’s one of the few in his company with the expertise in his area. So far the company has realized that he’s a distinct value … He came out of college and worked with the company for a few years, went back for his master’s, went back to the company and worked a few more years, then left and got his Ph.D. He tried academia for several years, but he preferred industry and came back to the same company who re-instated all his years of previous work in terms of vesting him and use towards vacation benefits, etc. With God’s grace, he’ll retire from the same company. I’m a stay at home mom, having raised our children and been the primary caregiver in our home for all four of our parents. We’ve lived off one salary, are putting two kids through college at the same time, and are vary “comfortable.” Will we ever make the money of “wallstreet,” heck no! … but for a very decent living wage … we’ve been blessed. Hopefully, our d (who’s currently a chemE major) will find the same success. Anecdotal info … of course :)</p>

<p>zebes</p>

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<p><a href=“3”>quote</a> Engineering is more of a meritocracy than business. If you want a well paying job (or a job at all these days), you need to go to a top ranking business school. On the other hand, even unranked engineering schools have no problem placing their graduates in well paying positions

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<p>Actually, I would argue the opposite is true - if anything, business is more meritocratic than is engineering. Heck, you said it yourself: even a bad engineer will still get a job whereas a bad businessman (or business student) won’t. </p>

<p>Furthermore, as I’ve noted on other threads, and as you have agreed here, the variance of engineering salaries is far tighter than is the variance of business salaries. The best engineer doesn’t really get paid that much more than the worst engineer - perhaps at most 3x - but the best businessmen can easily be paid orders of magnitude more than the worst one.</p>

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<p>Really?</p>

<p>Median annual wages of purchasing managers were $89,160 in May 2008. The middle 50 percent earned between $67,370 and $115,830. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $51,490, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $142,550.</p>

<p>[Purchasing</a> Managers, Buyers, and Purchasing Agents](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos023.htm#earnings]Purchasing”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos023.htm#earnings)</p>

<p>Seems pretty good to me. Heck, the best purchasing managers seem to make more than do the best engineers.</p>

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<p>Well, law schools and med-schools may love engineers who have high grades. But let’s face it, engineering grading is quite harsh. If you’re an engineering student with less than a 2.5 GPA - and I know a lot of engineering students in that category - you’re not going to get into med school or a decent law school (granted, you might get into a low-tier law school). </p>

<p>I am quite certain that the vast majority of engineering students would have had higher GPA’s if they had simply chosen easier majors, and hence would have enhanced their chances of being admitted to law or med school.</p>

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It looks like there might be 30,000 purchasing managers in the US. That’s so utterly tiny. Literally, a dust speck.</p>

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<p>G.P. really nailed many points here. Do listen to the guy.</p>

<p>I will also say that many engineers continue to learn and often seek advanced degrees through out their career to stay relevant. For example, I’ve seen a number of engineers go back to get MBAs(either full or part-time). I’ve also seen a number of engineers go back and get Masters or PhDs in their engineering field. </p>

<p>Yes, if you don’t keep learning you will have major problems as an engineer. G. P. is right in that those engineers who either don’t move into being and expert in their field or a manager/project manager are considered poor performers…basically. It is not fair to compare these engineers to the average business major.</p>

<p>It is a rather bad idea to think your formal education is over after receiving a Bachelors in engineering.</p>

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<p>Uh, so? The question on the table is not how many purchasing managers exist. The question is, how much do they make? GP Burdell has asserted that they make $50k. The BLS disagrees.</p>

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You don’t think the amount of jobs is relevant to a probabalistic assessment of future earnings ability?</p>

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<p>I think they are probably aware of the trends and choose to take the path towards their passion regardless these trends. Not all people would like the lifestyle of business while others would say they can’t stand the prospects of engineering. And G.P. nailed it when he said that many of the trends in engineering are present in the business world at the same scale. It’s the changing world that everyone is going to have to adapt to.</p>

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<p>That’s not the question on the table. </p>

<p>Besides, even if it was, that would not be a valid way to calculate the future earnings ability of any particular job anyway. Salaries are determined not only by the number of jobs, but also by the number of people trying to obtain those jobs, which in this case, is an unknown quantity.</p>

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<p>It looks like I was looking at buyers, and not managers. Mea culpa.</p>

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<p>I used to agree with that statement, but these days grade inflation has hit engineering schools. Most schools now have an average GPA above 3.0 and several are in the 3.2 range. I don’t think you’re seeing as big of a drop of from Non Enginering -> Engineering anymore. </p>

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<p>The reason for my argument is that good and bad are more objective in engineering than in business. A bad engineer won’t get fired as he still has value, but everyone will know he’s a bad engineer and he’ll remain in his position. A bad manager with silver tongue can spin things and continue promotion through the ranks. This is much easier to do with the credentials of a top business school on the CV.</p>

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Agreed, but we are trying to determine the future earnings potential of a degree. In which case it makes sense to reason that a purchasing manager is a rare option for a business major to be (as BLS says there are only 30K in the entire US). There are over 1.5 million “engineering” jobs in the US.</p>

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<p>I didn’t post those numbers to be some sort of in-depth analysis - I was just addressing the claim that managers make more than engineers. They don’t. They have a higher ceiling than engineers most of the time (that’s ignoring the engineers that go into entrepreneurship and patent their inventions), but if you take an above average (but not exceptional) manager and compared him to an above average (but not exceptional) engineer, at the end of their career they’re about the same.</p>

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<p>I really wouldn’t trust the BLS site or any other. Ive worked at Circuit City before and managers there some with no HS education were making 80K a year. </p>

<p>In the real world hard work never implies success.</p>