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I thought they made like 200-$300k/year, but looks like the top engineers only make like $150k, not that 150k isn't plenty of money, I just thought they made more
Do engineers not make good money anymore?
- Thread starter The motor guy
- Start date
Companies went from being run by engineers and people with technical knowledge to being run by people trying to get the stock price to go up and make money. The value of knowing something is lost more often than not these days.
Depends on location, of course, and what you are responsible for.
Alot of things don't pay as well as they used to. Top evening news anchors could pull down 200k-300k a year. Those days are long gone. Al Roker is/was pulling down $1.8-$2 million dollars per year just as a weather anchor on the Today show.
Boeing is an example we all know that proves that bean counters in the long run can destroy a company if they compromise the engineering excellence they once had.
Lots of different types of Engineers in a lot of different industries . Power company , fresh out of College with zero experience ? Not so much . Our new Engineers were jealous of the working hands , especially since they didn't get paid overtime and we were killing it . It took a while for them to work their way up into manager positions where the money was at .
Here is some info for 2023.
Depends on the field, industry and location...for example microcode engineers in Silicon Valley or here will drive very generous comp packages (in '18, we were starting top engineering grads at ~$100K plus bonus and equity), a civil working for a Town, not so much. Look at industries w/ strong margins and growth and those engineers will be doing very well.
Enough with the 'accounts killed...' trope. While many public companies have become very, overly focused on the next quarter's numbers, the finance folks are no more responsible for product results than the Engineers (whose job is to build a performing product to a budget...that whole sell at a profit thing), Product Managers and anyone else involved in the go-to-market function. I'd argue that in tech at least, many, many bad product decisions were made by Engineering type leaders giving the customers what they should want (if only they were smart enough), as opposed to what they truly want and need. Listening to the accountants doesn't kill companies, NOT listening to customers does.
Enough with the 'accounts killed...' trope. While many public companies have become very, overly focused on the next quarter's numbers, the finance folks are no more responsible for product results than the Engineers (whose job is to build a performing product to a budget...that whole sell at a profit thing), Product Managers and anyone else involved in the go-to-market function. I'd argue that in tech at least, many, many bad product decisions were made by Engineering type leaders giving the customers what they should want (if only they were smart enough), as opposed to what they truly want and need. Listening to the accountants doesn't kill companies, NOT listening to customers does.
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Pay hasn’t kept up with inflation for over 40 years.
who rose up to be in marketing and/or sales. Not only did they sell their souls to get the position but they conveniently forget what it is to be in the trenches, forgetting how the work gets done.
Many a time I heard in college how “c is good enough for me”. No one cares about your gpa a year after your first job. Turns out, product to the customer only has to met the min spec, any better is just costing time and money.
Depends on career choices. What do you want?
...depends on what you are selling and who you are selling to.
True enough, but I suspect for most, it only has to meet spec. Anything more is not worth the effort. Hit the scope statement and call it done.
Isn't that why you have a spec? If customer needs more they need to write it in the spec. Although change orders are often lucrative
Mission Creep is just as big an issue in most technical endeavors. Trying to do more than is required and for which the customer will not pay for. It only has a value if someone will pay for it.
A nephew of mine was in a Fortune 100 medical company as a top top level engineer. He was making your large # X2. He left because the DEI hires were incapable to do the job of being an engineer, and everything was getting so screwed up because people were hired that had no business being hired because they were very low level engineers. Top top level management only cared to satisfy the DEI cult, The World Heath Organization and the other nuts that are "lampreys" to that thought process.
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JHZR2
Staff member
It’s possible to make good money. Like anything, you need to start to manage teams of people and do more to achieve more income.
I find the top 10% numbers dubious. They seem a bit low to me. Meanwhile the entry numbers seem not too far from what we were seeing when I graduated undergrad 20+ years ago. I know a number of phd engineers that got offers at the mean and we’re making above the top 10% in a few years.
It’s hard to say though. A lot of fields, including in medicine seem to have fairly stagnant wages compared to distant memory. Unless you have a trade lobbying group actively working to reduce supply…
I find the top 10% numbers dubious. They seem a bit low to me. Meanwhile the entry numbers seem not too far from what we were seeing when I graduated undergrad 20+ years ago. I know a number of phd engineers that got offers at the mean and we’re making above the top 10% in a few years.
It’s hard to say though. A lot of fields, including in medicine seem to have fairly stagnant wages compared to distant memory. Unless you have a trade lobbying group actively working to reduce supply…
Civil engineers around here generally make ~100k/year on the high end, assuming they have a constant stream of projects to work on. Promotion to Project Manager nets around $130k. New college grads might start out around $50k. It's common for engineers to be laid off if there's no projects. Like said earlier, companies are now ran by people who care nothing more than making their stocks hit a threshold for their own bonus.
@The motor guy, I'm curious what you made last year. What was your reported income not to the dollar. Like was it $45K, $70K, $105K?
