top paying jobs in CA

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I'm an industrial engineer, looking for a new job. </p>

<p>What are some engineering firms who pay a lot in bay area or LA area?</p>

<p>Some that come to mind...</p>

<p>Cisco
Chevron
Microsoft
Oracle</p>

<p>???</p>

2

<p>the silicon valley has literally hundreds of random tech. companies.... just not a lot of them are known by name. I'm sure you could still get a very good paying job at one of them tho</p>

3

<p>
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What are some engineering firms who pay a lot in bay area or LA area?

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<p>I have to agree with sstory in that the highest paying firms almost certainly tend to be small firms, especially startups, that nobody has (yet) ever heard of. Note, that's not to say that these small firms pay more in general, as there are also plenty of small firms that pay worse. Rather, it's that there are so many small firms and the spread in pay among them is so wide that you will inevitably find extremes at both ends, with the upshot that the highest-paying small firms almost always pay more than the highest-paying big firms, in fact, sometimes substantially more (i.e. by a factor of 2x).</p>

4

<p>Yeah, the silicon valley does have a lot of companies, but I don't know if many of them are high-paying.</p>

5

<p>how would i go about finding what the "hotter" start ups are?</p>

<p>like yelp?</p>

<p>and how many of these startups actually hire IE type jobs? like supply chain and what not. </p>

<p>seem like mostly computer oriented....</p>

6

<p>I didn't necessarily mean start-ups as I wouldn't really see how an IE would fit into a lot of those companies either... but there are tons of large tech. companies that DO need those kind of services all around the area: apple, google, intel, sun microsystems, yahoo, intel, nvidia, HP, ebay, tivo, adobe... we seriously have all the big tech companies here I could only think of a handful off the top of my head</p>

7

<p>
[quote]
Yeah, the silicon valley does have a lot of companies, but I don't know if many of them are high-paying.

[/quote]
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<p>Oh, a lot of them are very high paying. You can check the salaries yourself on career boards like Craigslist or Monster. </p>

<p>Again, the reason is simple: there is such a large number of companies in SV that you are inevitably going to find some that pay very well. {And of course there are many others that don't pay well.} </p>

<p>
[quote]
how would i go about finding what the "hotter" start ups are?</p>

<p>like yelp?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually, that's probably a mistake. What I have found is that the "hotter" startups generally tend to pay less, probably because they can. After all, lots of people want to work for 'hot' startups (because of the possibility of becoming a millionaire through stock options), so they don't need to pay well. Heck, I seem to recall reading somwhere that the salaries at Google in the early days were mediocre. Not that those early employees are complaining, as they're all filthy rich now. </p>

<p>If you want a high salary, you want to find a 'not-hot' startup that is trying to become hot. Those are the startups who are willing to vastly overpay in order to get people. </p>

<p>
[quote]
and how many of these startups actually hire IE type jobs? like supply chain and what not.</p>

<p>seem like mostly computer oriented....

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</p>

<p>Ha! You say that as if that's such a bad thing. In fact, I'm sure you realize just how flexible an IE degree can be. For example, a lot of the Web companies have to deal with datacenter and network capacity planning, which is basically a systems optimization (and hence an IE) job. For example, Google alone spends more than $3 billion a year just on capital expenditures alone, and while some of that is in purchasing real estate, the vast majority of that is in buying datacenter equipment to keep the website up. Granted, that's Google, which is obviously a huge company now, but that just shows you that any Web startup that is engaging in hypergrowth will need proper systems optimization.</p>

<p>But as far as supply chain goes specifically, you can work for one of the new semiconductor startups that SV generates all the time. Practically all of them will be 'fabless' (in that they won't own their own wafer-fab), rather they will outsource for manufacturing capacity from one of the silicon foundries, usually in Asia. That's a major supply chain job right there - how do you these companies ensure that they have the right capacity available at the right quality at the lowest possible price that will ensure timely delivery to their own customers.</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
I didn't necessarily mean start-ups as I wouldn't really see how an IE would fit into a lot of those companies either.

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<p>On that note, I have to say that I think you guys ought to be more entrepreneurial in your outlook. Just because you majored in something in college doesn't mean that you have to pursue that topic in your job. You have to be willing to consider new opportunities as they come. </p>

<p>Consider this. Chad Hurley, one of the 3 cofounders of Youtube, doesn't have a technical degree at all. His degree is in Fine Arts. One of the 3 cofounders of Paypal and now a prominent venture capitalist, Pete Thiel, majored in philosophy, and also has a law degree. Tom Anderson and Chris De Wolfe of MySpace similarly never studied any technical subjects - Anderson studied rhetoric and film, and De Wolfe studied finance and business. Alex Rigopulos, cofounder and codeveloper of the company who created Guitar Hero, studied Music and Media Arts (OK, maybe that's not that big of a stretch). </p>

<p>It's not just true of founders. Plenty of 'engineers' at startups don't have the "right" kind of engineering degree, or heck, not even an engineering degree at all, and in some cases, no college degree whatsoever. Heck, I used to work at a Web startup where a grand total of one person on the entire engineering team actually had a formal degree in CS/CE/EE. Everybody else had just learned their skills by themselves or on-the-job. </p>

<p>But the point is, you should never allow your degree to 'imprison' your career.</p>

9

<p>^ that's pretty true. I always found people selling themselves short when they pursue careers only in their "major" field. I mean, I know PhDs who never touch their research areas again after their degree.</p>

<p>If everyone only pursued areas related to their academic disciplines, the liberal arts majors would be quite jobless.</p>

10

<p>adobe, google (best paying jobs with best benefits, incl amenities such as free drinks, free candy.. etc)</p>

11

<p>What Sakky said is very true. I found some of the engineers who are very good don't have any degree at all. They rise from technician level. In fact, one director that I worked with at a prominent company in Silicon Valley did not have a degree. But he was a go-getter. Get angry/mad at a drop of a hat, because everything is based on his performance :D
I've heard people who don't have EE/CS degree have a harder time finding a new job if they are out of work. Slight problem.</p>

12

<p>ya quite the opposite, i actually want to stay away from doing IE stuff. i kind of don't believe in it that much. I just dont know how liekley it is for me to get a good job at a good company with something i'm un-degreed in, especially with my sub 3.0 gpa. </p>

<p>i have work experience at boeing ( a year ) </p>

<p>whats the rule for when you can omit your gpa on job applications? mine is a 2.6, real ugly.</p>

13

<p>Don't put on your resume if your GPA is not greater than 3.5. I don't remember interview any new graduate with GPA less than 3.6/3.7. However, in the application you have to fill them out truthfully. But once you get to the application stage, they are nearly ready to hire you so don't worry.</p>

14

<p>"Don't put on your resume if your GPA is not greater than 3.5"</p>

<p>erm... ok. hahahaha.</p>

<p>no, actually,</p>

<p>that wasn't a funny joke. at all.</p>

<p>it's not like they are trying out for IB/ mgmt consulting gigs.</p>

<p>and seriously, he has been working at Boeing for a year w/ his 2.6.</p>

15

<p>I was not trying to be funny. Sorry, back when I was interview fresh out from college, IBM required a minimum GPA(3.5) before they bring onsite. You can choose to ignore it if you like. Note, this is free advice.
I believe IB banking only look at certain colleges and most likely top 10%. Do you know that some of these firms, Goldman Sack for example, continuously weeding out the bottom 5%. Microsoft used to do it and so is GE.</p>

16

<p>Columbia_Student// ill start working for GE w/ my 3.1 and had 5 onsites overall including Microsoft, JPL (caltech/NASA research center), United Technologies, and Samsung.</p>

<p>and one of my friend, who had 3.1 as well, had final interviews w/ both IBM and Intel.</p>

<p>my other friend, who pulled 2.9, is currently working at GM.</p>

<p>i dunno when you graduated from Columbia, but i guess time has changed alot. (although i agree about your IB banking story)</p>

<p>note, this is free advice from a fresh grad. tell that to your son. cuz you are simply out of your reality check.</p>

17

<p>But the question is whether to list it on your resume. You don't list subpar GPA on your resume and that is the advice.</p>

18

<p>ok. maybe not for 2.6, but if it's 3.0, you definitely list it.</p>

<p>all of my friends mentioned above including myself listed their GPAs on our resumes (ok, i dunno about the guys w/ 2.9), why do you think i'm telling this story in the first place?</p>

<p>maybe you do interviews for your IB banking firm, that's why you see only stellar GPAs on the resumes.</p>

<p>not so true for engineering firms these days, (at least for the ones that interviewed me)</p>

19

<p>It depends on the company. I know the ones that I was interviewed for pick top 10 engineering colleges with very high GPA(BTW, it is not on your list). I know our company rejected candidates with 3.8 from UCLA and 3.3 from UCB.
The GPA rules came from guideline from my UG school when I graduated and recommenations from headhunters/books. You dont want people to weed you out very early in the process. Listing a not so great GPA might allow them to do that. You want companies to bring you for a face to face interview. Now I did not say you can't get a job with lower than 3.5 GPA but just don't list them. YMMV.</p>

20

<p>Don't take your anger out on me.</p>

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