<p>Sakky, I wish I could give you (or more importantly the aspiring engineers on this forum) the “concrete” answer you are look for. But your question is akin to asking what steps are needed to graduate at the top of your undergraduate engineering class but an order-of-magnitude more complicated. No checklists for success available from me I’m afraid.</p>
<p>But that said, the short answer is that you have to become indispensible to the company for a core line of business. I would say intellectual curiosity is the biggest requirement along with a strong innate intellectual capability and a desire to excel. When I interview people I can tell more from the questions they ask than the answers they give if they have the potential to end up as an SME someday. If they ask me about career paths and leadership options, I would point them in another direction entirely. But if I see the excitement in their eye when we talk about some arcane new technology we are developing…then I think this person has potential. You likely would have graduated near the top of your class in a respected undergraduate program and have an advanced degree or degrees. During your career you will likely have developed and patented important new technologies for the company. You will often present papers at major conferences and be a respected leader in the engineering community. Within the company you will be the person that is called on when others cannot seem to find the technical answers that are so desperately needed for success in a major program. Not many engineers will end up in these positions, but they are available for the truly key players.</p>
<p>The first 3 on my list are New york. My friend the boat mechanic is not unionized. I thought his job would be vulnerable when the economy took a hit but it wasn’t. I asked him about this and he said that most people that own big boats are either wealthy or retired on fixed income, so they were not effected as much and either was he. </p>
<p>The second 2 work with me in San Diego, not exactly a cheap city either. They are my ex room mate and my girlfriend, so the numbers came straight from them. I would get angry when they would tell me about all the perks they get like $125 dinner allowances and my room mate got 2 tickets to the friggen Rose bowl! All of this on top of them telling me how they partied their ass off in college.</p>
<p>And just so it doesn’t sound like i’m a slacker or something, the companies I worked for … lets say one was a major defense contractor that starts with a R and the other company makes playstations </p>
<p>This is my salary history since I graduated.</p>
<ol>
<li>52k </li>
<li>53k</li>
<li>63k</li>
<li>$39/hr on W-2, no benifits.</li>
<li>65k +4k bonus</li>
<li>After being laid off. $35/hr on 1099 for 3 months. Total comp ~$45k for the year.</li>
<li>$32/hr on w-2 out of work for first part of year. Total comp ~$40k for the year</li>
<li>$80k full benefits.</li>
</ol>
<p>I’ll just say this, because I don’t want to sound like a Debbie Downer lol. Engineering is not a bad profession. The job of an engineer is waaaay easier then getting the degree. The one plus I have over all 5 of my friends is that you can find an engineering job almost anywhere in the US, whereas they are some what bound by locations that offer their jobs.</p>
<p>Obviously you would do that if you could. However, practically all companies require that, as a condition of your employment, you sign legal contracts stipulating that anything you invent while employed by them is their intellectual property. Otherwise, they simply won’t hire you.</p>
<p>While there are obviously some EE’s and CompE’s who are able to make secure, high salaries, the question then is what actual concrete steps can somebody take to become one of them? For example, I can agree that EE’s who deeply understand the intricacies of mission-critical satellite communications systems can indeed become highly paid engineers. But to become such an engineer, you need experience with the actual specific satellite systems that have been implemented. What if your employer refuses to provide you with that experience?</p>
<p>In the CS/IT space, your opportunities to decide your own fate are clear. You can reasonably build your own Cisco home networking lab or Linux server pod rack and you can order the relevant manuals and textbooks and learn cutting-edge technologies at your own pace. However, it is far from obvious as to how to do that as a (non-CS) engineer, for which you often times need access to extensive equipment. I certainly agree that if you happen to be one of those engineers who is chosen by your employer to learn cutting-edge, mission-critical technology, then you are surely sitting pretty. But what if you’re not? What are you going to do now? </p>
<p>Again, it seems that the moral of the story is that fewer people - or, at least, those who desire the opportunity to control their own career fate - should not be engineers, but rather should become IT staffers.</p>
<p>Sakky, then what would be a good career to get a nice 100k salery? Would a finance degree be better than a engineering degree to get into a TOP MBA B-school? How about a computer science major?</p>
<p>The “high-finance” jobs that pay big money right out of school are concentrated in New England and have about 10,000 applicants per 10 openings…and you have to be from a certain school.</p>
<p>So if getting six figure jobs are so common, then you would see it more often. In any field. Engineering is quick to peak, but the background opens many doors. In most finance degree cases, the starting and later pay is only about that of engineers from my own experience. It depends on many things. If one truly wants to make money, and is willing to work for it, and engineering degree will definitely not hurt.</p>
<p>Finance companies really don’t care what you major in, they’re fine with any student from a top school. And by “top” I mean “top 10”. Recruiting drops off very quickly as you move out of the top 10.</p>
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<p>It depends on what the student is doing. Salaries at good finance firms are much higher than salaries at good engineering firms, even if they start out about the same.</p>
<p>Rogracer, I’m afraid that is precisely the sort of blithe palaver I was trying to avoid. Note, that’s not a knock on you, for I know that you’re just trying to provide the best advice you can. But what you’re saying, frankly, is obvious. Everybody knows that a strong desire to excel is desirable. Everybody knows that a strong innate intellectual capability is desirable. Everybody knows that intellectual curiosity is desirable. You haven’t said anything that people don’t already know. Like I said, I know you’re trying to do the best you can to answer the question put before you, and I know it’s a difficult question. Yet the true value-add of any discussion board is to provide information that people don’t already know. </p>
<p>Here’s another possibility. It is obvious that the level of intellectual curiosity and excitement of which you speak is desirable, but what is not obvious is how do you develop that curiosity and excitement? How exactly do you become excited about wanting to know how to run the most efficient fluidized cat cracker possible? </p>
<p>Also see below. </p>
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<p>Actually, New York, which is not in New England. Many of the larger firms will also pay to send you overseas - London being a common destination. I suspect a lot of people here wouldn’t mind being assigned to London. </p>
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</p>
<p>Given that you happen to come from one of those schools, the competition is far less intense, to the point that - at least before the crash - the majority of students at those schools who truly wanted a finance job could have gotten one. It may not have been at a top firm, it may not have been at a location you really wanted, but you probably could have gotten one. </p>
<p>Incidentally, this seems to be a major reason why so many engineering students from MIT and Stanford - including even engineering PhD graduates - sadly chose not to actually work as engineers, but rather as financiers. For years, the finance industry has been draining the best talent from engineering. For example, one of the best recent graduates produced by the MIT materials science PhD program - winner of a number of graduate awards - decided not to actually take a job in engineering, but rather became a venture capitalist. </p>
<p>{I agree that if you don’t come from one of those schools, your chances are basically nil, which behooves you to then enter grad-school at one of those name-brand gateway schools.} </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Please be clear: I’m not talking about most finance degrees. Most finance degrees are awarded by no-name schools from which the graduates generally take jobs at commercial banks, mortgage brokers, or the finance division of a regular corporation.</p>
<p>What I, al6200, and other posters here are talking about are the finance jobs within the financial services industry, meaning the large investment banks, or, even better, in the VC/PE/HF/wealth-management space. These jobs not only pay easily within the 6 figures just to start right out of college, but more importantly, the pay ramps up quickly from that point on. The finance industry has been repeatedly noted, and recently lambasted, for its remarkably high compensation packages. </p>
<p>Going into 2011, starting salaries for investment banking positions with a bachelors degree (assistant or junior analyst position) should range from $100,000 to $130,000 after bonus.</p>
<p>However, I agree with your general point that 6-figure salaries are clearly uncommon. As I said, for the financial services industry, the gating factor is clearly the school; if you don’t happen to attend a name-brand school, you basically have zero chance of obtaining one of those jobs. {But for students who do happen to attend one of those schools, the financial services industry is a highly popular option because of its anomalously large pay.} </p>
<p>But what’s more intriguing is the notion of jobs that not only pay 6 figures, but, as was asserted previously on this thread, rarely require you to work over 40 hours a week and involve little stress and excellent job security. {Whatever other characterizations might be made about the financial services industry, certainly low-stress, high job security, and short working hours are not apropos.) </p>
<p>Which is why I have been asking what are the specific, non-obvious yet concrete and actionable steps an engineer would have to take to obtain one of those positions? Or, put another way, what is the gating factor that prevents every engineer from obtaining one of those positions that pay such large packets rather than the regular engineering jobs that pay only the $70-90k salaries that the median engineer makes according to the BLS? Just as most people who want jobs in the financial services industries are winnowed away because they didn’t attend a brand-name school, something must similarly be winnowing away all of the engineers who would like those high-paying jobs but can’t obtain them. {And if they can obtain them, then what exactly are the specific, concrete, actionable steps would they have to take to obtain them?} </p>
<p>Otherwise, I don’t know how you get around the notion that it’s better to become an IT worker, or perhaps a software developer, than an engineer. As an IT or software worker, the development of your skillset, and hence the trajectory of your career, is largely in your hands. Barring truly expensive systems such as storage networks, most IT skills can be learned with equipment available at a quite reasonable price. A pod of servers with which to learn how to build a Linux, Solaris, or Windows cluster costs only a few thousand dollars using cheapo used hardware and either free or cheap trial vendor software. {You can download Windows 7 Enterprise Edition for free for a 90 day trial, Linux is opensource freeware, and Solaris is available for free for lab purposes.} If you want to learn networking, you can build a well-stocked Cisco home lab with used gear from Ebay for $5-10k - which you could then sell back on Ebay to recover most of your costs once you’ve finished. That’s a bargain compared to the cost of college. Heck, if you become competent at both servers and networks, you can construct an facsimile of your company’s entire IT backoffice infrastructure in your home lab. Hence, a highly enterprising and curious IT worker could learn in depth every single piece of infrastructure that his employer operates. </p>
<p>But you can’t really do that in most engineering fields. For example, you can’t just decide one fine day that you want to really learn how an oil refinery visbreaker works. To do that, you need access to an actual visbreaker. What if your employer doesn’t provide you with that access, perhaps under the justification that it represents millions of dollars of capital investments and so you need to wait your turn before you can learn it? Then you’re basically screwed. It doesn’t matter how excited or curious you are: if your employer simply refuses to provide you with development opportunities, then you have no way short of quitting and working for somebody else to improve your skills. You certainly can’t decide to learn it on your own time, which is the standard modus operandi within the IT and software space. </p>
<p>{Heck, I remember one IT guy who became frustrated at the lack of learning opportunities at his company, and so then spent most of his time at his desk surreptitiously remotely logged into his own home lab & server pod which he was using to develop new skills. He also quietly earned a number of IT certifications on his own dime and time. What made his plan ingenious is that it certainly looked like he was working very hard on some IT systems - and indeed he was, but on his own personal systems, not the company’s. True, his work performance suffered greatly, but he didn’t care, because in a few short months, he was able to parley his new skills to a far higher paying IT job at another company. </p>
<p>But, like I said, you can’t do that as a regular engineer. If you’re bored with working with hydrotreater and want to learn something else, you can’t simply decide that you’re going to surreptitiously learn how to run the catalytic reformer. The company decides your pace of development, and if they decide that they don’t really want you to learn new skills, then you’re not going to learn them, no matter how excited and curious you may be. You’re locked into whatever tasks the company decides you should have.}</p>
<p>I think this actually makes the IT job worse, because there are fewer barriers to entry, and hence maintaining a high salary is difficult. If there’s a skill that you can only learn from a handful of schools or employers, it will be very hard for people to learn your skill and drive down your salary.</p>
<p>Engineering does suck for those who lost their jobs and are over 40 years old. Good luck in getting any interviews. I am currently 54, lost my job in August 2009 after 20 years in the same company when all my functions were discontinued or moved to other offices. I did some contract work there during 2010 but not enough to base a living on. I know that my engineering career is over. Yes, I am a Licensed Professional Engineer and I passed my E.I.T. exam back in 1981 but all the experience I have is no longer valued. Age discrimination in engineering is an epidemic and you can’t do anything about it. I would not recommend engineering as a career to any student now as it is vastly overcrowded and competition is extreme. Continue with it if you like it simply as an academic achievement but don’t expect to make a living from it. I call that a very expensive hobby.</p>
<p>If you can’t expect to make a living from it, how did you survive the 20+ years you were employed? I’ll take a couple decades worth of work even if that’s all I can expect…</p>
<p>I think you are forgetting that in IT, there are new “technologies” created every year. The general public and corporations always want to be the the entity that has the technology first so those engineers who can provide that new technology will be in demand. Add to the fact that there are usually more job openings than available applicants makes the industry less competitive (depending on specialization). I am now in year 21 of software engineering and have been north of the $100K barrier for the last 10 years…albeit living in the DC area which can drain most of that in living expenses.</p>
<p>I will admit that I did somewhat “luck” out because the area of databases systems is STILL a “optional specialization” in many Computer Science programs. I don’t know how it is in other big cities, but in the Washington area, most Data Architects, Database Designers and Database Admins (DBA’s) are old farts like myself…while the more “cooler” stuff like Java, A.I., Graphics, etc are more likely to be of interest of the younger folks. Remember though…a corporation needs to store/retrieve information (databases) and that database usually runs on some operating system (Linux,Unix,Windows) so those who can keep those areas up and running will be vital to most corporations.</p>
<p>Some of the CS/IT areas that many younger engineers like probably pay more than databases and operating systems, but they also change more frequently and may involve more employee turnover so they end up giving more money over a shorter span. I prefer the “almost as good money but longer and more steady work career” path.</p>
<p>Actually I DID expect to make a living from engineering. Back in the 1970s students were told point blank that engineering wasn’t just one of the best four year degrees, it was THE best; it was described as an impossible-to-fail, can’t-miss career that was not only superior but stupefying superior to all other four year majors. It has turned out to be nothing of the sort. It will provide an average lifestyle with below average job security and longevity. During the past 31 years since I graduated I have been out of work 4 times and collected benefits each time. The 20 years straight that I worked seems to be an anomaly in engineering. Lots of people lose jobs in the various engineering fields, it’s not a rare event. In the long run for me it wasn’t worth it if I am going to have to work for 40% of what I made in my last job by being a driver or security guard if I can even get that. Yes it really does suck. Not for all, but for a growing number.</p>
<p>The only fields I can think of that might provide similar pay and job security for the same amount of time spent in school are nursing and physician’s assistant. Maybe accounting as well…?</p>
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