<p>Can someone please explain to me the engineering ceiling? What salary do you usually stop at?</p>
<p>there really isnt one...some jobs you can earn 40K, some can earn 210K, some 100K...it all varies on each individual type of engineering and the company or whether you're doing contract work (which usually is higher, but the company can cut you at any time soo it has its good and bad to it) or working for the gov't or whatever...
a better thing to look for is average salary for your type of engineering</p>
<p>My friend works for a big aerospace firm. Many engineers get their MBA's and move up in salary by becoming managers. Many of these people making $150,000 and up over the last 20 yrs. Others become "technical fellows" who become such experts that their salaries rise also. If you are average,bad or unlucky you can get stuck in a labor grade with no promotions and your salary can get stuck. Many times these people will not even get a cost of living adjustment. Each labor grade has specific salary boundaries and once you are at the top you need a promotion to make more money. So there is really not one set salary that all engineers rise to.</p>
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there really isnt one...some jobs you can earn 40K, some can earn 210K, some 100K...it all varies on each individual type of engineering and the company or whether you're doing contract work (which usually is higher, but the company can cut you at any time soo it has its good and bad to it) or working for the gov't or whatever...
a better thing to look for is average salary for your type of engineering
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<p>Anyone who replies that there is no cap or ceiling for a non-management engineer, is very likely not an engineer, or not in a real work environment (i.e. DOD, DOE, etc.). Not only is there a cap, but job security becomes an issue after about age 40, which, when coupled with outsourcing realities, adds up to a very tenuous situation on the back-side of the career curve. Read DILBERT -- it's all true. EVERY SINGLE DILBERT CARTOON is linked to someone's reality.</p>
<p>its hard to say theres an actual "cap" because job types/companies vary much, and the need for certain engineers fluncuates from year to year</p>
<p>environmental engineering consulting....eng'ing project managers top out about 100-120 or so at 15 to 20 years. Those that are in supervision & group management have more potential....up to ~150's. Bonus's for these senior engineers range up to 25k/year. Companies' bonus policies vary considerably, but base salary is more consistent across companies.</p>
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Anyone who replies that there is no cap or ceiling for a non-management engineer, is very likely not an engineer, or not in a real work environment (i.e. DOD, DOE, etc.). Not only is there a cap, but job security becomes an issue after about age 40, which, when coupled with outsourcing realities, adds up to a very tenuous situation on the back-side of the career curve. Read DILBERT -- it's all true. EVERY SINGLE DILBERT CARTOON is linked to someone's reality.
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<p>OH_DAD, I see you're back.</p>
<p>I don't think anybody asked about issues with job security. I would argue that engineering has no more issues with job security than most other jobs which you can get with just a bachelor's degree, and is probably better positioned than most such jobs. After all, if you think that engineers have job security issues, what about those people who majored in the humanities? There are far more of them than there are engineers. </p>
<p>Furthermore, in your reference to Dilbert cartoons, it's obviously a warped caricature of reality for humorous effect. But even taking Dilbert to be a representation of the truth, you can look at it in the following way. The character of Wally in Dilbert is an extremely lazy and inept engineer who does very little work and yet gets paid quite well anyway. In fact, reportedly, Scott Adams based the Wally character on a guy he knew back at his days working at Pac Bell on a co-worker wanted to get the generous severance package that the company was offering by deliberately trying to be lazy and rude so that he would get laid off (and thus get the package). </p>
<p>Dilbert is basically a microcosm of the working world. Yes, there are put-upon engineers like Dilbert. Yes, there are evil pointy-haired bosses. There are workaholic stress-freak engineers (Alice). On the other hand, there are also incompetent and lazy engineers who nevertheless get paid well and retain their jobs (Wally).</p>
<p>I recently spoke with an engineering manager at Intersil regarding this very issue. He told me both paths are viable (technical or management). One can either go into management, or become a senior engineer. A good design engineer with 10+ yrs of experience is both hard to find and expensive to replace, so they are treated very well. He even says a couple of design engineers that work for him have a higher salary than he does.</p>
<p>But, I can't say if things are the same outside of the semiconductor industry.</p>
<p>I agree with the above posts that it is very difficult to quantify the earnings of engineers. Certainly, most people seem to agree that non-management engineers tend to centre in the 75 to 90 range. </p>
<p>But to think of this is to miss the larger picture that the engineering degree can lead to finance and management consulting - where there is real money to be made.</p>