Low salary ceiling for engineering majors?

My research makes it look like the variability in “traditional” engineering salaries is much smaller than that of, say, software engineering positions. So for example, the median starting salary for Stanford mech e. undergraduates is $74,483, just modestly above the nationwide average of 66,890, Stanford comp sci majors make a median of 93,850 (based on whichever year’s data I googled), far above the nationwide average. It seems to me that the top software engineers make a lot more money than the top traditional engineers, who barely make any more than a mediocre one. Is this an accurate statement?

Keep in mind that Stanford software engineers also tend to feed directly into silicon valley at higher rates. This is largely about geography, which has a huge role in engineers’ starting salaries and is why using starting salary as a means of ranking engineering programs is foolish.

Hi @boneh3ad

I’m basing my data on flaky google searches, but I think that MIT comp sci grads also start at around 90k.

It’s true that most of the high salaries go to Silicon Valley, but I’m not aware of any Silicon Valley equivalent for the more traditional engineering fields.

This might explain why a lot of the higher achieving traditional engineering students that don’t want academia flock to Silicon Valley (or Wall Street).

Silicon Valley is one particularly extreme example but even just the cost of living in an area affects salaries, so a mechanical engineer from Stanford who stays in the Bay Area is likely to make substantially more than a mechanical engineer from, say, Purdue, who stays in the Midwest, even if they are doing essentially the same job. In many cases, the buying power of the lower salary in the Midwest is actually higher than that of the higher salary in a place like the Bay Area (though not always).

In general, traditional engineering salaries have been relatively stagnant for a while (unlike computer science) and it is one reason why there is a significant group of people who contend that the STEM shortage is an illusion. I don’t honestly know if that is true or not, but it is food for thought.

Shoot, even academia pays pretty poorly. If a high-achieving student is motivated by money, they are a lot more likely to head for places like Silicon Valley or Wall Street. Any high-achieving student who is actually interested in engineering itself isn’t likely to do that and can usually make more in industry than in academia anyway.

@boneh3ad Cost of living is a good point. I haven’t run the numbers to see if that makes up for the disparity.

Sorry, I worded myself poorly - I mean, lots of “high-achieving”, as in academically talented, students do end up in academia, and the standards for, say, MIT graduate schools is arguably higher than the bar for Google or Facebook. I know that it doesn’t pay very well.

I don’t know how to tie this to myself without sounding like I’m calling myself “high-achieving”, but I’ve been tempted to jump on the bandwagon and switch to software engineering. I like the academic content of engineering, but not necessarily the industrial side, and it seems like there’s less room to differentiate yourself than in software - a really good mechanical engineer only makes modestly more than an average one.

Cost of living makes a huge difference. To continue the compassion between Stanford and Purdue and staying in the same area, San Francisco and Indianapolis, if you made $74,483 in SF, you would only have to make $27,294 in Indianapolis for a comparable quality of living.

Source: http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/indianapolis-in/74483

Sadly I think that is a reasonable observation. Sadly (depending on your view) I was one who decided to chase the academia dream, so ice already decided to eschew the big bucks (though it’s not like I’ll starve if successful, either).

@boneh3ad where do you work?

Right now at a national lab. We will have to see how this faculty application cycle goes before I know where I will work come August.

There are a lot of things going on here.

First, there is the distortion that top programs introduce into starting salaries for reasons that have little to do with engineering. A lot of places pay extra to have MIT and Stanford grads on the payroll, and those programs also feed a lot of people into things like consulting and finance that still show up on the school salary surveys even though they are more about the marquee than the field. So those programs are terrible benchmarks.

Second, academia pays relatively poorly but offers a lot of perks that traditional employment does not. You have a lot more freedom and (importantly) own some, often most, of your own intellectual property - a lot of engineering professors start successful side businesses and substantially supplement their incomes. About a decade ago I had a job near a university that let me see credit applications, and I had a few engineering profs coming in with 200-400k aggregate annual incomes. And they were in full control of the direction of their careers. If my friend (a prof) invents something, he gets money from it. If I (an engineer in industry) invent something, I get a hearty handshake.

Third, CS is a bit of an anomaly because software is a highly lucrative product - investment costs are comparatively low, and per-unit costs are essentially nothing. Whenever there is a lot of profit, there are usually going to be better salaries. But remember, that is only for a fraction of the software jobs, and that also means huge competition to go with the constant fear that your job (entirely done on computer!) will be outsourced.

Fourth, the data doesn’t even back up the differences you are talking about. If you look at BLS data (coming indirectly from the IRS), software engineers (code 15-1130) are making a mean 2014 salary of $95,280, while electrical engineers (code 17-2070) are making more at $97,460. Petroleum engineering appears to be doing by far the best right now, with a mean $147,520! The mean for ALL engineers is $93,630, so (except for petroleum) we aren’t talking about huge variations here.

Fifth (wow, there are a lot of these!), you have to remember that at a certain level, almost everyone turns into a manager of some sort. So remember that a lot of high-level engineers of all types are dropping off of the “engineering salary surveys” because they have moved onto the “management salary surveys”. In ALL fields.

Ultimately, making a few extra grand a year in a job you like less is not worth it. Every field offers the “best” the chance to make a lot of money, and every field has a lot of low-paying, unhappy jobs as well. Find what you like, do well at it, and the money will largely turn out to be good enough.

I know of one company that has hired Computer and electrical engineers over CS majors because of the CS premium. They’re in the rust belt, FWIW.