Future of Engineering 1

[industryL]

Hi guys,

First some background: I am just finishing my Bachelor's in Chemical Eng from a university in Ontario and I'd like to ask the long-time engineers here some questions.

I've done some research and concluded that as an EIT we start of with no more than 50 000 a year, which I am perfectly OK with. However, how long, in general, do you think it takes to achieve a salary comparable to other "professional" programs (pharmacy, optometry etc) (i.e. around 100k?) I know it can be done and there are engineers earning even more than this, but if it takes 30 years to achieve, money wont even matter to me as much at 50.

Secondly, what worries me most is the unstable nature of the profession recently. Have you experienced frequent layoffs? How hard has it been to get another job? Do you start at a lower base pay?

Also, would you advise I continue down the path as an engineer? I really do like the work, but I'd like to know what you think. Another important point is the workplace. Are you treated with respect, as I assume an engineer should, or are you having to deal with annoying people ? Would you have done something else other than engineering, looking in retrospect?

 

[GregLocock]

I doubled my starting salary by the time I was thirty. On the other hand looking at one company's pay structure you'd be hard pushed to do that. Inflation and moving between companies is the key.

I've never been layed off, no matter how often I volunteer.

No, you shouldn't continue down the path as an engineer, on my say so. I am treated with respect, and I have to deal with annoying people.





Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[LSpark]

If I could go back in time I'd chose engineering again and probably the same path. I've worked for the same company since I graduated (several different roles) and my pay is probably comparable to other professionals who've not moved up into management (I'm in my mid 30's).

I'm usually treated with respect but I think every job has times when you have to deal with patronizing idiots! I'm in the UK and although there have been several rounds of layoffs the vast majority of those were voluntary.

If you enjoy doing engineering then give it a go, you'd be miserable if you go into a profession just for the money not because you find the work interesting.

 

[moltenmetal]

Figure out what you love to do, and do that. Life's too short to be doing stuff merely for money.

If you take the OSPE salary survey data and back-correct it to remove inflation, you see the same basic curve: starting salary is X, salary increases at 10% of X (plus cost of living) per year until year 10 where it reaches 2X. It then stays there until you retire, more or less, unless you "rise" out of engineering into the business realm. That curve hasn't changed in the past 20 years, although it seems to me that X hasn't grown at the rate of inflation over the past 20 years.

The EPCM consulting sector is rife with layoffs. People who work in that sector tend to become tramps, moving from company to company as projects come and go.

It's still possible to have a great career as an engineer- if you're in the top 10% of the crowd, and you make good choices.

But do what you love, and you shouldn't go too far wrong.

 

[SomptingGuy]

If I remember correctly it was the Chem Eng guys who got the big bucks. Something to do with that industry being capital rather than labour intensive so that employee salaries weren't the biggest drain on profits. If you like living in remote parts of the country and working in refineries that is.

My salary curve fits well with what Greg and moltenmetal have described. 2X starting somewhere between 5-10 years. A quick internal shuffle around the divsions and I've now topped out at about 4X starting, at 20 years.

I like the mutual respect in engineering. Only a bit of snobbery, but it's quite cool when you realise that all of your colleagues are similarly educated so none of them think you're showing off if you mention something you know. You just need to tone it down if you ever go "home" and your old school friends ask what you've been up to. In my experience (learned very quickly), they don't care if you are travelling around the world, solving complicated engineering problems. I was pressurised by an old friend into telling what I earned. He was shocked - thought it would be at least double that.

- Steve

 

[SNORGY]

If I had to do it all again, I would be a dog trainer, not an engineer. Dogs are a lot more willing to listen to you and do what you instruct them to do than clients (or MBAs) are.

Engineers, by and large, at least in Alberta - certainly in EPC - are not respected or held in any favourable regard whatsoever, by their employers, the public at large, or anyone else. They are seen as irritants and annoyances, because to do what engineers recommend (which is invariably "the right thing") costs money, erodes the employer's profit margins, and prevents clients from "...bending the rules and laws..." to suit their own convenience.

When layoffs come, engineers are the first to be disposed of, and the employers can't wait to push them out the door.

Don't seek validation from others in this business. It isn't forthcoming. You have to really derive your own satisfaction from it, deriving your own pleasure or pride or self-worth from what you put on paper, in writing, on the computer screen, and ultimately in the field. You have to like what you do for its own sake. If you don't have the passion for engineering for its own sake, stay clear of it. It is the most "blue collar" of all "professions", so much so that most are made to feel that they are even subservient to the cleaning staff working the night shift in the building.

That said, in my own case, my salary went from "x" to "8x" in 27 years. You can be successful if you are able to keep your passion for it.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[Twoballcane]

Check this out for perspective (see earnings):

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#earnings

Now, I have to say it's not the number of years, but how you negotiate your salary thru out those years will get you to the upper 25% to 10% of your profession. In other words, do not feel entitled to a higher salary just because you’ve tacked on the years. You will have to exhibit “why” you deserve the bigger raise and grease (network) the skids so that when your name comes up the higher raise will be in your favor. I did not learn this till 7 years into my career and thus I’ve did not reach the 100k mark till 5 years later.

Also, don’t compare yourself to other professions that require more years of school and demand for that profession. You’re not comparing apples to apples. An Engineering BS (or BE) is the highest paid profession for a “bachelor’s degree”:

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending...ollege-degrees-in-2011/6116/?tag=content;col1

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

 

[industryL]

Good answers all around, thank you for taking time to post

It's encouraging to see that an entry level salary will tend to double in around 10 years. I also see the consensus is that layoffs are not that frequent, unless you work in in the EPC/M sector, which I was interested in, due to the design nature of it (process design/plant design). Looks like its not the most stable engineering sector.
I'm interested in something along the lines of pilot plant testing, development, maybe reactor design and R&D. I'm a little unsure of what kind of companies would offer those kinds of services, so far I only know that the pharmaceutical companies do this kind of thing, but the pay tends to be less. Maybe you know something about this line of work.
I'm not so worried about respect, really no profession is respected in Canada except maybe professor or doctor. I guess I was asking more how are you treated by those you are working with.

 

[SNORGY]

industryL

For what you are interested in, the current R&D development work of interest that I am aware of reside in biomass pyrolysis and in recovery of waste bitumen from tailings. You might consider chasing down some university types and some "enviro-fuel type" companies for suiitable opportunities.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[Comcokid]

Doubling your initial pay in 10 years - sounds good until you consider inflation.

I've been out of school doing engineering 32 years. 10 US patents (one even issued this year), 6 foreign patents, published papers, awards, electronic products designed from concept to post production support in everything from submarines to the international space station, aircraft, nuclear power plants, consumer products, heavy equipment, etc. It seems like I've done a lot of design in a lot of areas.

BUT - checking glassdoors.com shows that I don't make the average of what a CVS pharmacist would make after 1 to 3 years (what industryL exampled).

ALSO - checking an online inflation calculator using the CPI (consumer price index) as a reference shows that I am making 30% above my starting salary. However, the CPI is re-formulated in just about administration to make the party-in-power look better. If I go to an online inflation calculator that uses an un-fudged stat like the U6 inflation curve (from ShadowStats), I find that my current salary has a buying power only 48% of my out-of-school salary.

I remember in the early 80's when I was only a few years out of school that the Greyhound bus workers were on strike. I recall that a news story showed what the starting salary was for the various positions at Greyhound. The starting salary for the lowest position - a baggage handler - was more than I was making as an engineer with several years experience!

Engineers like to manipulate materials to make things for the good of others. Some other professions tend to manipulate others for the good of themselves. If you like the former over the latter, then Engineering may be for you. And, let's face it. You stay in engineering only if you do indeed love it. And, most of the time I know I do.



As a monetary/debt side note, I will point out that maybe Gold is not inflating, but it's just that the buying power of most currencies is dropping. Since Halloween is just around the corner, you could also go to YouTube and watch "The Secret of Oz" for a really good monetary scare (it's won a number of documentary awards).

 

[Twoballcane]

Please don’t poison our new engineering brethren’s or sister’s mind with un-substantiated hearsay and unfair comparisons (which I warned in my other post). We’re Engineers let’s get some good data. For bus drivers (I guess the mid-level position) the mean makes 45K a year (

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos242.htm#earnings)

where ChemEs mean makes 85K a year. A Pharmacist does make more, but they have a Pharm. D. plus 2 more years of Pharmacy training (which they have to compete to get in) and then have to take a kick a$$ licensing board exam and then they can work as a Pharmacist. Where as an Engineer can work right out of college with just a BS and have a better starting salary (and overall career) than other BA. Yes CVS Pharmacist does make more money, but they work twice as hard as a Pharmacist who works for a hospital.

industryL, your just starting now and will need to grow your experience to gain leverage on garnering higher compensation. The bad news is that it may take 5 years before anybody will take you seriously for a fat raise and promotion. However, you can start now and learn persuasion, presentation, and networking skills not just for work, but also when your evaluation comes and you will have to make a case “why” they should give you a better compensation package (raise/promotion/responsibility). And remember, never ever seem (or feel) entitled to anything.

Some recommended reading:

Power, Influence, and Persuasion by Harvard Business Essentials
The Exceptional Presenter by Koegel
Technical Writing by Rosengerg


Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

 

[moltenmetal]

I agree: let's not make unfair comparisons.

Let's make them fair. Let's take the OP's original comparison: optometry (I'm guess that Ontario uni you went to is UW, as they have one of the few opto programs in Canada). I had two high school classmates who took opto, i.e. they started at the same time as I started 1st year eng. They both transferred into the opto program after two years of general sciense undergrad, and took four years to complete the opto program- same amount of time that it took me to do my co-op undergrad plus my accelerated combined bachelors-masters- if I'd taken the usual Masters route, I'd have been in for on average a year longer.

They were ready to take placements upon graduation, although they, like engineers and all other professions, needed mentored experience under a licensee to gain a license to practice on their own.

To start, they were making TWICE my starting salary.

The upward room for salary growth afterward for an opto is admittedly more limited than the growth of an engineer's, but if they set up a good practice with a dispensory they can pull in a tremendous amount of coin. And unlike dentists, what they do doesn't hurt, so the patients aren't stressed out all the time. Optos don't have a huge suicide rate like dentists. The worst harm they can do is to prescribe some contact lenses that don't quite fit right. And their saddest time of day is when they have to refer someone to the opthomologist so that he can tell them they're going blind. It's a seriously good gig from a dollars earned per investment and risk perspective.

But it would be a TERRIBLE career option for most engineers. It takes a totally different personality type from that needed to succeed in engineering in my opinion.

We educate many times more engineers than our economy needs, and yet we make the universities ever bigger. Accordingly, those that really want to work as engineers, earn less than they probably should. Welcome to the real world.

Do what you love. Don't sell yourself short or let others tell you what you're worth. Figure out what you're making for others and make sure that they know that you know it, too. Do those things and money will matter a whole lot less to you because you'll be having a blast. You also will have enough money to avoid feeling like you've been ripped off.

 

[ajack1]

I think some of the salary growth figures from older guys, like myself, can be very misleading.

In my first ten years of employment 74-83 inflation in the UK averaged 13.46% in my last ten years it has averaged 3.27%. So a doubling of salary in ten years can be either a good or bad thing.

Certain jobs also seem to have there time, a few years ago estate agents (people who sell houses) were making fantastic money far less so these days, both margins and quantity of work have dropped dramatically, sound familiar?

In short I feel engineering offers a fairly secure income and I enjoy what I do, well most of the time, what price you put on that is down to the individual.

 

[Twoballcane]

Yes let’s make a fair comparison of Optometry (

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos073.htm).

“All” Optometrist (well in the USA) must take 4 years of undergrad and then at least 3 years in an Optometrist program (where 1 out of 3 get accepted) where they come out with a “Doctorates Degree” in Optometry and then “all” have to take a license exam just to start working. How is this fair comparison to Engineering? “Most” Engineers only have their BS, some may have their MS, and a few have a PHDs. Most Engineers that have their BS do not have their Doctorates degree and do not need a license to start working as an Engineer in industry. Why do we keep comparing our selves to other fields that at minimum need 7 to 8 years of school and a mandatory license to just to start working to our field where all we need is a BS? May be we should make it mandatory for Engineering that we all get our Masters and pass the PE just for us to practice Engineering and get companies to only hire people with that kind of pedigree. I’ll guarantee you that our salary will rise just like the others with the same level of determination. Let me ask this, what other field where all you need is a bachelors degree and do not need a license to practice is better than engineering? That is the base line we should establish.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

 

[industryL]

I used pharmacy and optometry as a comparison of salary, I was simply wondering if as an engineer I can ever reach 100K. Of course we can't compare with engineering since they are licensed and, like moltenmetal said, it takes a certain "personality" to do those jobs.

Moltenmetal I never heard of an accelerated masters/bachelors so I guess i'm not from UW, I'm sure you'll get it on your next guess, haha. What is you job like? What do you do, what field of chemical are you in? Also what was your starting job? I'm just wondering what path to take in chemical, it's broader than I thought, for example EPC doesn't sound very good even though it's interesting.

Thanks

 

[Comcokid]

Some Electrical Engineers are frequently reaching and exceeding 100K in salary according to the articles I've seen in EE Times the past few years. However, when you look at the details of the salary surveys you find the EE that do reach 100K or more are either managers, or in certain specialties (RF IC or Analog IC design) and/or are working in Silicon Valley where the cost of living and correspondingly the compensation are substantially higher.

I have no insight into the current compensation of Chemical Engineers. Each of the Engineering discipline has ups-and-downs over time as a major program is finished/cancelled (Apollo, SST, Shuttle), or as oil prices boom or bust, or as technology booms, or as manufacturing moves offshore. I used to think that Civil engineers were mostly immune to such things, but the present recessions has hit them hard. Such things might greatly affect your compensation over your career.

However industryL, a large part of engineering school is not the knowledge and calculations you do the pass the teachers tests, but is: Learning how to solve problems for which you initially have no knowledge, and, Learning how to learn, and, How to determine exactly what kind of new knowledge you need to tackle a new problem. If you like learning new things, figuring out how things work, and like the satisfaction from seeing what you had to figure out becoming reality, then engineering is for you.

As to your other question from your original post: Every workplace is different regardless of whatever kind of work you are doing. Even a janitor will find a workplace in which he will be treated with dignity and ones where he will not. The same is true in engineering. Such things are sometimes almost impossible to determine when you interview at a company. Frequently you don't know if it will be a good environment or bad environment for several weeks after you start a job. This is why the skills you pick up in school are doubly important - you always need to be constantly learning because good engineering skills will also translate into the ability to get out of a bad environment or situation to find a good one should it be necessary during your career.

 

[FeX32]

I'm also in Ontario.

I was simply wondering if as an engineer I can ever reach 100K.

This is a given. However, as said above, do what you love. Don't do it for the money. If money is all you care about then get a bunch of grad engineering degrees and your cap is not around 100K it usually goes up to 150-300K. Mind you, i'm talking about research here and engineering professor positions as well.
Money can be obtained by other means, if you are really hungry. For instance, the housing market in the GTA right now is nuts. You can make a killing simply buying and selling...




Fe

 

[moltenmetal]

Twoballcane: the comparison I made is accurate in Canada. By the way, in Canada, engineers actualy need a license to practice professional engineering, though it is possible to work as an employee without one as long as the firm has a C of A. There is no general exemption like there is in the US.

Fifty or sixty years ago here, the average engineer made about the same as the average doctor, about 30% more than the average lawyer, and about 50% more than the average accountant. Now, the other three have left us in the dirt, and we're having a hard time keeping pace with the (unionized) Ontario teachers- especially once you figure in their defined-benefit pension plan. Not that I feel the teachers should earn less, mind you.

Can you make $100k? You're assured of that given your age. Adjusting for inflation, the averages say you'll be earning more than $100k unless you make bad choices or the economy goes completely in the sh*tter.

By the way IndustryL, I work in exactly the sort of field you'd be interested in- but we hire almost exclusively from amongst our previous co-op students, so you're out of luck. Most of the process development work you're interested in does not happen in Canada any more- it left in the 1980s and isn't coming back.

You can make a life for yourself here in an EPC, but I don't recommend going there right after graduation (better there than no job, but not an ideal first job). You need your commonsense calibrated a bit by exposure to the real world before you end up in the land of the "stationery" engineers (i.e. the ones whose product is paper drawings and specifications etc.).

 

[beej67]

*sings a tune*

"...Mamas, don't let your Babies grow up to be Civils..."

My wife has a masters degree from Stanford and still doesn't make six figures at age 35, and likely won't for at least age 40 or 45. I'm working for myself now, so I'm a difficult gauge. Nobody makes any "real" money in Civil Engineering until they quit Civil and start working in a related less technical field closer to the money, because Civil is commoditized and we drive each other's margins down in competition. Other engineering fields are more like medicine, in that people don't push all their services to the lowest bidder, so those pay better.




Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[moltenmetal]

FeX32, I don't know where you're getting your data!?

From the 2010 OSPE salary survey, the very top eschelon of engineers (Experience level F- 20-30 yrs from graduation, multiple advanced degrees or senior management) had an average salary $136,000, and average total cash compensation of $153,000. The high decile was $169,000 total cash. That compares with a starting salary average of about $57k (probably closer to $55k as the lowest experience range is 0-2 yrs after grad).

Advanced degrees do add a bit of earning potential, but not as much as you imply. In fact, on a net present value basis given a reasonable ROI expectation, the increase is not enough to pay back the lost income from extending your stay as a student. That's for engineers, mind. If the extra degree is an MBA which gets you out of engineering into the "business" world, the pay gets as wonky and unpredictable as the values those folks seem to have.