<p>I know my cousin is a CS major, he's an IT manager now and he got paid around 170k a year. I don't know any ME, EE or CE that got paid over 100k a year. I might switch to CS instead =P.</p>
<p>Petroleum engineer starting pay is 300k a year and it can peak out at $50k. You actually make less, the more you work because the job is so fun after a while you’re doing it just for the experience.</p>
<p>My dad was an aerospace engineer but is now a physics professor at an air force graduate school and makes a little over 260k a year. That’s with a Ph.D, though.</p>
<p>Edit: idk if you would consider him a true engineer anymore though</p>
<p>My dad makes $150k a year! He’s a chemical engineer :)</p>
<p>“My dad was an aerospace engineer but is now a physics professor at an air force graduate school and makes a little over 260k a year.”</p>
<p>So your dad is a government employee who makes $260k a year? I find that hard to believe.</p>
<p>I know of certain government engineers who make $250,000 per year as designated experts under a special program with the US government. In private industry, I have never met an enigineer who made more than $145k.</p>
<p>Well idk why my mom would lie about how much my dad makes, especially considering how modestly we live.</p>
<p>ok first… almost all engineers make over 100k eventually. But petrolum engineering is the highest paying engineering</p>
<p>It sure isn’t this guy:</p>
<p>[From</a> Engineering Major To Cater Waiter: Grads Enter The Job Market](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>From Engineering Major To Cater Waiter: Grads Enter The Job Market | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>Hey, don’t post that here CalPoly. The people here don’t like to hear negative information about their precious engineering profession. We prefer to keep our heads in the sand.</p>
<p>“almost all engineers make over 100k eventually. But petrolum engineering is the highest paying engineering”</p>
<p>Says who? Only petro engineers have a median salary of over $100k:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#earnings]Engineers[/url”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#earnings]Engineers[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Contractors like myself who support INTEL agencies make from $120,000-$180,000/year…and that is a full-fledged employee with company benefits. If you decide to go 1099/W-2/S-Corp independent, you can rack in $100-$120/hour or $208,000 to $250,000/year.</p>
<p>…work’s not hard either.</p>
<p>I don’t complain. I didn’t graduate from a “top” school, just a big 'ole state school…had a sub-3.0 GPA…no internship, no research, no extra-curriculars and wasn’t a 100% CS major neither.</p>
<p>And my wife is in a I.T.-related field, so no wife chillin’ at home painting toenails.</p>
<p>How does one get these $120k-$180k jobs? Do you need experience?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Need to know either Java, Information Assurance, Systems Engineering, be a Unix/Linux whiz or be a database whiz…and pass a polygraph.</p>
<p>Uhm homer… i see your name alot in these engineering forums haha. Anyways the link u posted shows that Petroleum engineers earn a median salary of over 100k a year, which is higher than everything else… so what’s your claim and proof again?</p>
<p>mMy uncle is a Petroleum Engineer and he makes roughly 1200 dollars a day. But he has decades of experience.</p>
<p>I know of several engineers and engineering professors making something in the $200-250k range. I also know of more lucrative positions that are not technically engineering but require experience as an engineer. For example, the VP’s of our various engineering departments all worked as engineers for a decade or so before starting the management track that lead to their $500k+ a year jobs. For that matter, I have a friend whose father started his own chemical engineering firm years ago (as an engineer), and while I do not know his actual income I do know that his beach house cost him over $8 million.</p>
<p>As far as government employees, most positions are controlled by the “General Schedule” which is not very lucrative for anybody, but some time ago they started opening up certain “high-demand” positions to “private sector matching” - they pay what the position would draw in the private world, usually with the requirement that the candidate had received a similar salary in their prior private position. I know a few people taking advantage of this, although none in engineering.</p>
<p>
Sure we do… from people who know what they are talking about. Bitter, out of work accountants just don’t have much credibility here.</p>
<p>I’m surprised by that cosmicfish. I happen to look up salaries for some of my profs, and it was rare for them to make over $150k/year (though I have one now that does). Seems like a pretty sweet gig, if you ask me.</p>
<p>In any case, back to the OP. My grandfather (now retired) worked in mechanical/industrial engineering. He and his colleagues started a company and he was making well over $200k/year when he retired in the late 90’s. He was in management, but he still did engineering work.</p>
<p>As for pure engineers, the highest paid people I know aren’t “just” engineers.</p>
<p>I know my dad does very well as a professor, but he’s been doing it for about 45 years! You have to remember that above their base salary, professors can also receive additional stipends for named chairs, etc. My dad also does consulting work for firms around the state. He also gives lectures all over the world and sometimes receives a little compensation for those.</p>
<p>The highest STARTING salary for a structural engineering grad I’ve heard of was $110,000 for a PhD. And yes, I’m sure of this number.</p>
<p>But most engineering PhDs will never make 6 digits or get any type of faculty job:</p>
<p>We are also graduating enough PhDs in science and engineering. The problem is that the majority of these graduates are foreign nationals (who are now increasingly returning home). American’s don’t consider it worthwhile to complete advanced science and engineering degrees because it doesn’t make financial sense for them to do so. Research by Harvard economist Richard Freeman showed that because salaries for scientists and engineers are lower than for other professions, the investment that students have to make in higher degrees isn’t cost-justified. Doctoral graduate students typically spend seven to eight years earning a PhD, during which time they are paid stipends. These stipends are usually less than what a bachelor’s degree-holder makes. Some students never make up for this financial loss. Foreign students typically have fewer opportunities and see a U.S. education as their ticket to the U.S. job market and citizenship. Hence, 60% of U.S. engineering PhD graduates are foreigners.</p>
<p>As this article from Scientific American discusses, the problems are even worse for graduating scientists.</p>
<p>…But today, however, few young PhDs can get started on the career for which their graduate education purportedly trained them, namely, as faculty members in academic research institutions.</p>
<p>Emphasis on the last paragraph:</p>
<p>**** Instead, scores of thousands of them spend the years after they earn their doctorates toiling in low-paying, dead-end postdoctoral “training” appointments (called postdocs) in the laboratories of professors, where they ostensibly hone skills they would need to start labs of their own when they become professors. In fact, however, only about 25 percent of those earning American science PhDs will ever land a faculty job that enables them to apply for the competitive grants that support academic research. And even fewer—15 percent by some estimates—will get a post at the kind of research university where the nation’s significant scientific work takes place. ****</p>
<p>[Craig</a> Barrett Takes On Vivek Wadhwa In The Tech Education Debate](<a href=“http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/craig-barrett-takes-on-vivek-wadhwa-in-the-tech-education-debate/]Craig”>Craig Barrett Takes On Vivek Wadhwa In The Tech Education Debate | TechCrunch)</p>