Basically my question is are there many engineering jobs that pay over $115,000.
Yes. There are also engineering jobs that pay millions.
Do u mean as a STARTING salary w only a bachelors degree?
I’m mostly talking about mid career salaries. It seems like the mid career salaries for a lot of engineering jobs are in the $90,000s and $100,000-$110,000 range. I would like it to be over $115,000, somewhere closer to $120,000.
I’m not so sure about exact careers, but I do know that experience can lead to management positions, which can pay significantly more. Getting an MBA would help achieve this, but it isn’t required.
Also the trend seems to follow that the more specialized the field, the higher the pay. Aerospace, chemical, and biomedical engineers seem to make slightly more than their less specialized peers such as mechanical, electrical, and civil.
Thanks for the MBA advice, that is something I’ll think about. Does a masters in engineering (such as Aerospace) increase pay by a substantial amount, or would just going right to a MBA be better?
Money is funny stuff. 115000 in NYC might have as much oomph as 75000 in Kansas City. Looking at absolute numbers isn’t really all that useful.
A MS does often increase pay. Sometimes puts you up 2-5 years on the pay timeline.
What I hate to see is a new graduate that’s in a rush to get out of engineering and into management. Life’s too short; they should study something different.
Well I would prefer to live somewhere in the Midwest or the northern east coast. I live in Ohio and we have NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Air Force Research Lab, and GE Aviation. Would an Aerospace engineer with a masters degree who is in the middle of their career make over $115,000 at one of these places?
Not in the Midwest, but in Silicon Valley, it’s doable but you have to pay $2million plus to buy a house vs $200k something in the Midwest. It depends on your location, I think.
I don’t know about aero, but for an ME or EE, or especially a software engineer, you ought be able to find guys in the Midwest, in their early 40’s and making 6 figures.
A really skilled contractor at the base in Dayton might do that, but then you’re typically looking at trading benefits against raw pay.
@DrGoogle got it just right with the housing thing. Figure $700 to $1000 a month to own a house in one of the flyover states (if you keep your ego in check), vs about that a month for car insurance in a major metro area. Hmmm… 
A lot of the really good engineers I know would do the work for free.
The real trick is to love what you do enough to do it really well, always learn, firewall your 401k and cash out your toys.
Will - What’s so magical about $115K? Is there a sibling rivalry on the line?
The other poster make very valid points about cost of living variables. Pick a field based on your talents and preferences not salary potential.
It is quite possible to make 115k a year in just about any field of engineering by mid-career. You do that by being the best engineer in your field and really getting things done. You don’t even have to go into management. Focusing on the money alone will only bring short term gains, focusing on building your skills and staying on the cutting edge of your field will make you a desirable quantity and the money will follow.
My company would figure a MS in engineering was worth about 2 years experience when it came to pay scale. Of course it would often take 2 years to get the MS, so it was about a push career path wise initially. If your MS was in your field of specialization, then it could be worth more throughout your career.
I was also wondering why an arbitrary number like 115???
$115k is not an unreasonable salary by mid-career for many engineering fields.
Keep in mind though that cost of living can greatly affect that salary number. In other words, a $115,000 salary in San Jose California is equivalent to about $65k in some fly-over city in the Midwest.
They certainly can, staying on a technical path, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will. The problem is that it largely depends on what you do up to that point - if you coast on your backside in a supporting role then you won’t be anywhere near that level, while if you are learning and innovating then you could easily be making more!
I guess I chose 115,000 because I know about where that gets you in Ohio. Thanks for all the advice; I really should focus more on doing what I like and doing it well instead of the money. Although I still would want a good salary.
I will make the assumption that you want to do engineering, and are not picking engineering for the money. With that said -
You will find as your career progresses that you will generally have enough money to live well, take the kids to Disneyworld, drive a decent car, or whatever else you want without worrying too much about the cost of each. Can’t have it all, but anything I really need is not a worry. I am probably in the top 20% of household income for my community.
So get out there, do a good job, and the money will take care of itself. Unless you have a crappy employer, run away from them like the plague. I had to do that once.
Years ago CS Lewis wrote that some certain amount of money was all you really needed. More than that was largely just keeping score. The median for your state is probably that “certain amount.”
What cosmicfish said in #14 rings true. Always try to reduce what you’re doing to a science, then elevate it again to an art. The satisfaction in designing something useful and just a tiny bit elegant is off the charts - even if you know nobody will every see what went into it. Maybe especially. At least that’s how I see it.
I am doing it because I think Aerospace sounds very cool and I feel like I could do it for a long time. I think from my writing I sound overly focused on the money but I’m really not. I still am going to ask do you the U.S. Bureua of Labor Statistics mean wage of Aerospace engineers being 100,000 is accurate?
It wouldn’t surprise me at all.