Do engineers not make good money anymore?

[javacontour]

Are the figures salary or compensation?

There is a difference.

Those benefits cost something.

A company budgets on the order of 30% more than the salary to cover insurance, 401(k) matching, FICA taxes and so on.

So that engineer making $150k may be getting $200k in compensation when the whole package is figured.

Salary is typically a subset of compensation.

 

[bunnspecial]

In grad school we had a specific "computer engineering" major, but it could be the same as electrical enginering. Many of the classes were specified as both electrical engineering and computer engineering.

I have a childhood friend who has a degree in "Computer Engineering." From what I could tell, his degree was a mash-up of comp sci. and electronics/EE, just as you said.

My take was that it was building a foundation to either go into programming/software design or hardware design. He went the software route and has been quite successful doing it.

I'm not in super regular touch with that friend, but just in talking with him I feel like he has a better understanding of what's going on inside than a lot of general programmers/software engineers do. I know all comp sci. education includes some of that, but I think his is a lot more detailed. Given how quickly things change(and that in the mid 2000s they were still writing assembly on Motorola 68Ks in his classes) I'm sure that he'd need a lot more study to really get down to modern x86-64 or ARM but at least they built the foundation for how it all works.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Computer science, which is typical for a lot of programmers, falls under "engineering" in many cases.

When users wanted something from me, they might call me a "Software Engineer". Most of the time they called me something else, especially if I said, "No."

 

[Leo99]

I'm not going to disagree. I'm a dentist but my undergrad degree was in biology with a concentration in biochemistry/immunology and I was one class shy of a double major in chemistry (advanced inorganic was only offered every other year and I was already heading to dental school). I was also a straight-A student including Orgo (I TA'd that for two years) and P-chem (I slogged my way through QM second semester) and because I wasn't a chem engineering major and I'm a dentist, she assumes, I'm an idiot. I can still draw you an SN2 rxn and talk about inversion of configuration and leaving groups or talk about T-cell activation vs tolerance induction or a ton of other topics and she doesn't seem to remember any of it. We actually had a bonus science question about molarity vs normality, a 1M solution of H2SO4 would be a what normal solution? She had no idea. She has clearly had too much of the Kool-Aid and she has been told her entire career chemical engineers are the smartest. We have another friend who teaches physics at the college level and SHE IS LEGIT. She is the real deal and seems to not only remember everything but her ability to reason her way through questions is impressive.

Many years since I was on the bench and I'm not educated in chemistry. Took one year in college and didn't learn much. If I recall from my time as an analytical chemist, H2SO4 would be 2 normal because there are two H atoms.

I recall now, working with a few Chem E people years ago and they lacked a lot of common sense. We were designing a manufacturing process and needed some help to select the pump so we leaned on the Chem E. He easily made the calculations ordered us the correct pump to meet our needs. A few weeks later a crate arrived with our pump that we eagerly tore open with crowbars. Our joy was short-lived as the pump needed 208V 3-phase power and we didn't have an outlet for that in our facility. The Chem-E didn't think of that. The Chem Es that I work with now are very smart.

 

[PWMDMD]

Many years since I was on the bench and I'm not educated in chemistry. Took one year in college and didn't learn much. If I recall from my time as an analytical chemist, H2SO4 would be 2 normal because there are two H atoms.

Bingo!

 

[k1xv]

Engineering can be a trap. Early in my career, I knew an engineer for General Electric Lamp division. His expertise was the seal between the glass and the metal in incandescent light bulbs. Then compact fluorescent bulbs came along, and then LED bulbs. And finally, incandescent bulbs were prohibited in the USA.

 

[Leo99]

Engineering can be a trap. Early in my career, I knew an engineer for General Electric Lamp division. His expertise was the seal between the glass and the metal in incandescent light bulbs. Then compact fluorescent bulbs came along, and then LED bulbs. And finally, incandescent bulbs were prohibited in the USA.

I rented a house from a guy that was an expert in some now obsolete computer programming language. And my expert, I mean one of the world's leading experts in it. Now, no one uses the language and his skills that took years to develop are worthless.

 

[JeffKeryk]

I rented a house from a guy that was an expert in some now obsolete computer programming language. And my expert, I mean one of the world's leading experts in it. Now, no one uses the language and his skills that took years to develop are worthless.

There are a few companies who use out dated programs coded in COBOL, Fortran and the like languages. Those old skills can sometimes bring in killer consulting money.

 

[Leo99]

There are a few companies who use out dated programs coded in COBOL, Fortran and the like languages. Those old skills can sometimes bring in killer consulting money.

If I had to guess, I think he was expert in MS-DOS programming. I remember him and some friends stealing an application by obtaining a printout of the code and having to manually copy and enter thousands of lines of code.

 

[y_p_w]

I have a childhood friend who has a degree in "Computer Engineering." From what I could tell, his degree was a mash-up of comp sci. and electronics/EE, just as you said.

My take was that it was building a foundation to either go into programming/software design or hardware design. He went the software route and has been quite successful doing it.

I'm not in super regular touch with that friend, but just in talking with him I feel like he has a better understanding of what's going on inside than a lot of general programmers/software engineers do. I know all comp sci. education includes some of that, but I think his is a lot more detailed. Given how quickly things change(and that in the mid 2000s they were still writing assembly on Motorola 68Ks in his classes) I'm sure that he'd need a lot more study to really get down to modern x86-64 or ARM but at least they built the foundation for how it all works.

Depends.

I've had a variety of jobs, and some of the people I worked with in the industry couldn't design an electronic circuit worth anything, but they understood programming. And that could be enough. But you're dealing with different levels of physical "closeness" to the actual electronics.

There's transistor level design, which I thought I'd be doing until a faculty advisor more or less talked me out of doing.

Then there's logic design, which is higher level. Traditionally that was done with "schematic capture" in the 80s. More or less dragging logic elements. But that morphed into hardware description languages, which can be anything from an abstraction to actually specifying the specific logic elements.

There's actual computer design, although I've never really done that other than a few academic projects.

Even higher level, some "computer engineers" are really writing software to varying degrees. Their understanding of the underlying hardware can vary.

Some people are strictly computer programmers and often don't understand much about the underlying hardware.

 

[ripcord]

I hear sanitation engineers make pretty good money

 

[CarLuver]

Why are we worrying and discussing what engineers make? If $200k doesn't go far in a high cost area as someone pointed out, there are plenty jobs that don't even pay 1/4 of that even in high cost of living areas. How do people in SF, NY or Austin live on $50K a year?

They rent or have multiple folks in a house with income. in many places its cheaper to rent the place then to buy it

 

[k1xv]

I hear sanitation engineers make pretty good money

Its a field that is flush with profit opportunities.

 

[The motor guy]

my nephews friend who got a job at FB last year got $200k and bonuses like stock options right out of college. But in my area , where million dollar houses are a dime a dozen, $200k don't really go that far.

Imagine making $200k and only having to buy a $300k house. That's why all these people are moving to tx

 

[John Galt]

This is a bit of a sore topic for me, but as a chemist, I hear a lot of people conflating chemical engineering and pure chemistry. I've also had MANY conversions with ChemEs where they were blatantly wrong about a chemistry topic but utterly convinced that they had to be correct because they're a ChemE. Not pointing fingers at your wife specifically, just years of having to deal with the same scenario a lot.

Many ChemE curricula only require general chemistry, one semester of organic, and one semester of physical chemistry for admission. This isn't(or shouldn't) be enough education for a minor in chemistry at any reputable school. Chemical engineering tends to be less about the chemistry and more about process design/control.

That's not to say ChemEs aren't great at what they know, just that most don't actually know the chemistry behind what they're doing.

I’m a chemical engineer. Not true of the pre laptop Chem E generation. I took two semesters of general chemistry, 2 semesters of organic chemistry, two semesters of physical chemistry and one semester of analytical chemistry and two semesters of chemical thermodynamics to get my degree. Each chemistry course had a lab requirement which was 5 hours of class/lab time with that giving you only 1 hour of credit towards the degree. I graduated with 145 semester hours of credit.

You are correct, chemical engineering is about scaling up the chemistry to make the output chemical safety and economically. They really are different skill sets. Chemical engineering involves simultaneously managing heat, thermodynamics and mass transfer so that the process does not blow up.

What I witnessed during my Engineering career was that newly minted chem E’s essentially became experts at computer aided simulation and design. All their engineering expertise involved simulations on a laptop. Me, I never had a laptop computer during my schooling but I had a lot of yellow college ruled pads and a TI-11 calculator, my slide rule gathered dust. My school engineering software experience involved writing programs in FORTRAN and submitting the stack of punch cards for a nightly run - and praying!

I once interviewed a Masters degree Chemical engineer and, as I liked to do when showing them around the production site. I’d point out pieces of standard equipment and asked them what it was. This was I thought of as trivial and a “gimme” part of the interview, meant to put them at ease. This MIT grad did not know what a pump looked like. To her it was just a symbol on a PID drawing. Her experience with chemical engineering was all computer simulations, no practical sense on how to jump from concept to buy equipment and build the darn thing. I did not hire her.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Imagine making $200k and only having to buy a $300k house. That's why all these people are moving to tx

Yeah, more short term thinking. Real estate is a great way to make money here. Housing in Silicon Valley has been a gold mine for the last 60 years. Imagine making $200K and having a $2M home free and clear. Or 3...

If you want money, go where the money is. Silicon Valley pressure is not for everyone, but if you are willing to really go for it, you just might find yourself in a pretty good place. Again, not for everyone; I can tell you that.

Anyways, good luck in your career!

 

[John105]

Isn't that standard ? Law schools don't teach students for any particular state's bar exam. You get a JD degree then decide where you would like to practice. Then you take that state's bar exam. You can take the bar exam for add'l states too if you desire.

No, not at the schools which I am referring to. At a normal law school, even tier III, since they are ABA accredited, graduates can sit for the bar in any state.

In California, there are non accredited (by the ABA) law schools. Graduates aren’t eligible to take the bar in any state. Except California. However, the odds of passing are not very good.

Point is, everything is for sale today.

Here’s an example. Going to this place one is not able to take the bar anywhere but California. It’s not accredited by the ABA.

Maybe it’s changed but in my time you could go to McGill or UT law schools in Canada and take the bar in any state.

https://calnorthern.edu/about-us/

 

[Hall]

No, not at the schools which I am referring to. At a normal law school, even tier III, since they are ABA accredited, graduates can sit for the bar in any state.

But you're referring to the exceptions to the rule, not the majority, are you not ? What I meant was with most law schools, they aren't teaching state-specific law so graduates are free to take the bar exam in any state they choose. They do need to brush up on state-specific laws to some degree though.

 

[LordNilesStandish]

In Australia Engineering is in crisis.
We are in chronic shortage of Geotechnical, Structural, Civil and project managers.
Despite this fact wages are barely more than 15 years ago and government regulation and professional indemnity insurance have tightened up massively.
One of our best Engineering Universities Adelaide University historically had 400 starting enrolled.
In 2023 they only had 20. That's for all the professions listed above combined.
We have been relying on foreign Engineers for a couple of decades but while some are excellent many are well, very primitive.
This has also been accompanied by a development of an abusive attitude towards Engineers.
I was discussing this earlier today and the parallel is best illustrated by the fact that when a building or public work was completed a plaque would be installed giving credit to those who made it happen. Now days we are lucky to get paid and are frequently stiffed. Even on very successful projects.

 

[PandaBear]

It depends on the profit margin of the rest of the industry. Software tends to make more these days but back then hardware made more by like 20%.

Civil and mechanical less so. I would not expect to get rich being a civil engineer these days but you likely will get a stable life working in a large corp or government agent for life in a low cost city, middle middle class.