<p>As I heard from many career/college forums, Engineers rarely get paid for overtime. Engineers are expected to work around 60 hours a week yet that additional 20 hours do not count as overtime. In other words, they are just salaried base profession regardless how many OT ones work. Assuming average engineer's salary at 80K, they are making about 25 dollars per hour with OT counted as regular straight hour. Engineers do not make any good money compared to other professions then after all the times we are being invested in college with all the sacrifice of college social life for good GPA then send hundreds of resumes hopefully to land a job. Is this the reward for engineer after all the hard work?</p>
<p>Where did you hear they they are expected to work 60 hours per week. With exceptions, that has not been my experience in general.</p>
<p>While I’m not an engineer yet, I do have know some people in the industry. Its true, engineers typically don’t get OT, and some work 40+ hours a week there are other forms of compensation. I know a woman who received a signing bonus for renewing her contract, have a relative who only worked 10 months out of the year, and a recent contact informed me of receiving a completion bonus for finishing a project ahead of schedule. So while on paper engineers may make “insert amount here” dollars, there are opportunities for a lot of pay outs to compensate for the time. </p>
<p>I have seen all kinds of options as to whether one is paid for overtime or not. The company I worked for was a large aerospace contractor doing a lot of government work. Because of the way the contracts with the government were written, our pay was primarily via salary; meaning only very small bonuses for those not on the executive payroll (executive pay was considered as an overhead expense to the contract).</p>
<p>We did get paid for overtime with a set of ever evolving rules. You had to get pre-approval to work overtime. The overtime period had to be a minimum of 2 weeks and a max of somewhere around 6 weeks. After 6 weeks of overtime, you had to have at least 1 week with no overtime (necessary to clear your head; reintroduce yourself to your wife and kids!!). To get paid for overtime, you needed to work at least 6 hours of overtime in the week and no less than 1 hour per day on any given day. (you were on salary after all and so if it took fewer than 6 hours then it was considered just part of your duty). There was a maximum projected yearly income that needed higher level of management to exceed. Many of the senior engineers were already above that projected max salary, so overtime pay became somewhat scarce as many times it was an unforeseen problem that would come up that needed more time, but one wouldn’t always realize it in time to get the management signoff for the max salary limit signoff. But at least it didn’t happen very often.</p>
<p>There were some people that didn’t go after approval for overtime but worked it anyways. Some of those people just felt that they were so important that they had to be there to work the overtime, and they worked a lot of overtime. It became an ego thing for them. Of course, they also complained about all the hours they “needed” to be there. Meanwhile, others in the same group were getting their jobs done in the 40 hours (or so). </p>
<p>A lot of salaried positions do not get overtime. I’ve seen places where 60 hours are required. I currently work for a design firm where 40 is required and you DO get overtime. Just got to find the right place. </p>
<p>Generally speaking, no company can legally require you to work more than 40 hours per week without additional compensation. Of course, they can withhold promotion and other such things.</p>
<p>It varies depending on a lot of different factors, as others have already noted. My company did not used to pay overtime, now they do (straight pay, no time and a half, but also not mandatory). And it is no different for non-engineers either - overtime pay is not universal, or even common, among degree-requiring professions.</p>
<p>It’s not unusual for professionals to be salaried (receiive a set compensation, no OT pay). In my company, typically engineers only get OT for about a year. After the first promotion, they are salaried. </p>
<p>Salaried means that you are basically paid by the job (not by the hour). So if it takes 60 hours to get the job done, then you work 60 hours. The issue comes in when you are expected to get that 60 hour job done in one week as opposed to a week and a half. If the schedule works out that occasionally you need to get that 60 hour job done in one week, then it is reasonable to suck it up a get it done in the week. The problem comes in when you are constantly taken advantage of to get that job done in one week. Even if you are paid for those 60 hours, you are sacrificing your personal/family time (the old adage is that nobody on their deathbed says that they wished they had spent more time at work). From the companies standpoint they are lowering their overhead costs (read benefits) by having you work overtime, whether paid or not.</p>
<p>I found that after a while of working 60 hour weeks, your efficiency would diminish. In almost no time you were only producing in those 60 hours what you could have otherwise done in a well rested 40 hours.</p>
<p>I also found that sometimes the schedule was not realistic from the start, but someone wanted to look good. They would also promise it without realizing how long it would take. Small companies may have to over commit them selves in an effort, they believe, to keep the customer happy (or just keep the customer). But in those circumstances the person over committing them selves will typically be the one benefiting from the extra work and they have done so willingly. Larger companies are a different story altogether.</p>
<p>The company just use this to their advantages then i.e. a 2 month into one month project deadline; Engineer team need to work 12 hours a day then. It is sound like another typical company’s tactic to reduce costs through cutting corners and closed-your-eyes policies. Each promotion is pretty much asking to has more works, higher pressure, and more competitive for a bit higher salary. </p>
<p>Employees are LEGALLY classified as EXEMPT or NON-EXEMPT, in regards to minimum wage and overtime regs of the US Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
<a href=“Flsa.com”>http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html</a></p>
<p>Engineers generally fall in the “learned professions” bucket
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<p>If an employer made their engineers work 60 hour weeks all the time, the engineers would all quit and go work elsewhere.</p>
<p>Engineers work to project DEADLINES. Every project is different, and the time demands tend to come in spurts rather than like evenly paced assembly line work. Many employers will grant compensatory time off, in lieu of OT pay. I’ve had to work some nights, weekends & holidays. But when I need to take care of personal business during the day (doctor’s appt, kid’s school event), I just go do it.</p>
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<p>First of all, 80k is what a <10 years engineer makes. Some engineering disciplines have starting salaries already at 100k (petroleum). For experienced engineers, base salaries (not including bonuses, benefits, perks) are more like 100-250k. Then are are possibilities to earn much more.</p>
<p>I have engineer friends who do technical consulting. The going rate for billing is more than 2000/day (yes, that’s 2 thousand, not 2 hundred). </p>
<p>If u pursue the management ladder in a major company, the sky is the limit for compensation. </p>
<p>The first engineering company I worked for after school paid for overtime. That was the exception.</p>
<p>This is one reason my husband and I decided to start our own firm. We don’t get paid for every hour we work, but our billing rate is much higher than our hourly pay on salary. We’ve done OK, except for 2013, which sucked.</p>
<p>@gmtplus7 is correct. Engineers would be exempt employees and, therefore, not subject to the regulations under the FSLA and, as such, do not need to be paid overtime when they work over 40 hours in a week.</p>
<p>The employer could require all engineers to work 60 hours a week, but then people might not want to work there. There is no legal reason, however, that would prohibit an employer from requiring exempt employees to work 60 (or 80) hours a week.</p>
<p>@Dadinator, maybe I do believe you back in early '90s or 2000s. Nowadays even with 12 hours labor a day, Engineers or other professions are still not safe from being layoff after a completion of project. So far, it looks like every company follow this formula, cant run and find better one. </p>
<p>@powerEE,</p>
<p>If u are so concerned about studying hard for nothing, not getting paid for overtime, and possibly getting laid off, then may I suggest becoming a plumber? </p>
<p>Plumbers command a high hourly rate. They get paid extra for odd hours & holidays. Their jobs can’t be outsourced to India. And there is a guarantee of a clogged drain somewhere in the neighborhood. Go for it!</p>
<p>Just so u understand, most employers do not relish firing & hiring professional staff on an ad hoc basis. Professionals are expensive to recruit & replace. Hiring a consultant (as I describes in my prev post) on a temporary basis can cost over 2k a day.</p>
<p>In my company, it takes months just to get up to speed on a complicated project before one can begin to contribute significantly. </p>
<p>@GMTplus7, Yes, I am concerned about 12 hours a day. As for now, while no school, I have two part time jobs about ~45 hours a week combined. Let me tell ya, I am dead beat at the end of the day. Now talk about 12 hours a day, I might be ended up on the floor or my health deteriorates over time. I understand other Non-degree jobs pay really well too. My dad, for one, is a small business owner and making decent money for someone barely speak English and no degree of any sort; he did offer me the business but I refused, because I like job that requires math and science. </p>
<p>Rehired can be expensive but they do what they need to do to cut down costs. Remember Boeing layoff 700 engineers last year?</p>
<p>Boeing laid off people because their long-term projections called for a smaller workforce. They do not intentionally lay off people that they think they will need again in a few months - the cost of rehiring is generally much more than the cost of simply maintaining those people for a while.</p>
<p>Seriously, 60 hour weeks w/o overtime do happen for engineers, and for some of them that is a constant fact of life… but that is not characteristic of the profession, any more than $20 million is the typical pay for someone who lists their job as “actor”. For most of us, 40-45 hour weeks are pretty typical, and if you are consistently working more than that then you are generally getting paid some financial incentive - either overtime, or bonuses, or just some higher level of base pay.</p>
<p>Nothing anyone on here can say will stop you from reading horror stories on the internet, nor stop you from obsessively worrying and second-guessing your career choices. Remember that the grass is always greener on the other side, and while you are flipping out about this, teachers and business majors and everyone else are all worrying about the same or similar things, but with LESS money as incentive.</p>
<p>Relax.</p>
<p>I think if you work for defense, I believe they have to pay you overtime over a certain limit. For non-defense, it’s get the job done mantra, doesn’t matter how many hours.</p>
<p>It’s no different from other major such as art, humanities, film, music. Some of my daughter’s friends work on average 60 hours with very minimum pay like around $30K+ish and they are the lucky ones with jobs. My daughter and her business partner, often joke about which 60 hours a week they get to work, and not whether they work 60 hours. The job can be stressful and you have deliver the final product within a certain timeline.</p>
<p>Where I work we don’t get OT for working longer then 40 hours in a week. We get time and a half for weekends though</p>
<p>@ThisIsMichigan - how long are your work weeks typically?</p>