According to Michael Douglass's portrayals engineers can be dangerous when they lose their jobs.
Posted on 06/17/2021 7:26:41 AM PDT by fireman15
Sometimes, when deciding on a career path, it can be difficult to know how your chosen industry will fare in the future. Are wages likely to increase? Will jobs be hard to come by? Much can feel unknown. To put your mind at ease, NewEngineer is here to help, crystal ball in hand. In the field of engineering it's clear that the current trend is towards information technology and automation, and this is set to remain the case for the foreseeable future – entering these sectors is as safe a bet as you could hope for. While traditional fields such as civil and petroleum engineering are still in high demand, the fastest growing fields are clearly those in the IT sphere. So, without further ado, here are 2021’s most in-demand engineering jobs and the salary potential one should expect from each.
(Excerpt) Read more at newengineer.com ...
Nothing about Chemical Engineers/Process Engineers?
That is because this country does not plan to build anything themselves. The work will go to India,China and other countries for pennies on the dollar and “engineering” will be done over the Internet.
Petroleum is a dirty word according to Biden and the Greenies.
As an Engineer, I call them by their rightful title, Train Drivers
In Washington State, Civils with their PE can get low 90’s to mid $120’s with 6-10 years experience.
These engineers are for on-site installations of Production Systems like D 365 or any of the WES or WMS systems - softeon, accelogix, etc.
The engineers have to be on site to fix the million bugs during the install...
According to Michael Douglass's portrayals engineers can be dangerous when they lose their jobs.
If I were starting over I’d look for a job with the Feds.
With so many paid holidays, no competition like private sector companies, not having to perform, it would be a no brainer.
Although, being a white male, the chances of landing a Fed position would be near impossible.
Thanks for sorting those.
From the article:
3. Mechanical Engineer
Mechanical engineering is a highly diverse discipline with an incredible amount of career options. Among other things, mechanical engineers are responsible for designing machines and other devices and to control manufacturing systems. Their expertise is needed in a wide variety of industries, including resource extraction, manufacturing, and agriculture. Because of the range of industries where mechanical engineers are needed, it is unlikely that the market will become oversaturated with entry level engineers.
I’ve said for almost 40 years now - a good ME can do almost anything - precisely for the reasons stated above. I’ve done well by moving from actual Mechanical Engineering to Project Management - it’s the same logical, organized mindset. I’d advise any grad to put in several years in what I call “real engineering” before moving to management or anything more administrative. The experience really paid off for me.
“Would never recommend an engineering degree. Spend the time and money on certifications. Welding, plumbing, mechanic.”
My BIL’s son went to college to become an engineer. At get togethers while in college I heard him say he would never do another toilet install in his life. (started as a helper for his dad at age 12-13)
He was an engineer of some sort for over 10 years, was laid off in the 2008/2009 recession, rehired for 4-5 more years then that company was bought out and he was told to move to a new location with less pay.
Had enough of the uncertainty of working for someone else came back, ate crow and took over his dads plumbing business and is making 6 figures with no stress.
I am not familiar with this particular news site but that may or may not be relevant since I have been retired for several years now.
My background…. I have two BS degrees in chemical engineering and microbiology and have worked professionally in both. I guess though that in the terms of the current fad, I self identify as an engineer. My particular niche is not in their list of hot engineering fields. Not sure if I should be sad or not. LOL.
The site's top list appears based on some combination of starting salary and number of job offers. That's fine, that was important to me as well when I graduated with the second degree ChE.
Salary…. I did a quick calculation on my starting salary vs. ending salary at retirement. My salary at retirement was 7.65X the starting salary. This is skewed though in that at starting, it was essentially at a probationary level and after 18 months my salary was about 2.5X the starting after transitioning from probation to professional. Comparing the first professional level to the final at retirement, this is about a 3X increase over my career. My SWAG is that that beats the level of inflation significantly.
Looking at the article's starting salary at the experienced salary level, I have some opinions.. I don't disagree with their numbers as I have no information to confirm or refute. This is face value, end stop.
It appears that the market demand is skewing to starting salaries to eliminate the difference between the the value of experienced vs. rookie, still green engineers. On the flip side, it is likely giving an incentive for experienced engineers to flip from one employer. When flipping, it is typical to get a very pleasant step increase in salary $$$$.
My particular engineering niche was not mentioned in their tops list. Oh my Gawd! Going into another corner of the website, it very reasonably mentioned demand in chemical, refining, food, water treatment (industrial I assume), food, alternative energy and mining. No argument with that list at all although I would add steel and metals in general to the list to account for ores processing.
I may wonder into rambling if I go further so let's stop here! Lol…. BTW, if you have not already come this idea, yes, I am a geek
Where is the Engineer of Color?
The rest of them all pursued basically worthless easy to get feel good degrees.
Well, there are degrees which will never pay anything.
“funny jobs do not pay!”
One has to have some unique marketable skills to help somebody well, so then that somebody would be willing to pay for that help!
Nobody (except maybe government) pays for degrees or to help you. Degrees are mostly ability tests. If you are able to get MS in Engineering, you are likely to be good contributor. Plus, of course, the school may teach you some marketable skills.
Key to your niece’s job opportunities is that she is a she in engineering. It was like that 25 years ago when I was a graduate. A mediocre girl will get more job offers than a high performance boy will get interviews simply because HR departments are desperate to hire women in underrepresented roles like engineering. The undergrad advisor posted the demographics of salary offers to the new graduates one year: the lowest female grad offer was several thousand higher than the top male.
It has been like that my entire career. Women are given first shot at jobs, and promotions. Companies regularly sponsor women leadership and mentoring luncheons and even day long events. If they don’t, the ambitious ones quickly jump to other companies that do those things. And they still lecture us about how sexist men underpay women and keep them from leadership positions.
The unemployment rate for “beautiful” people is at 0%. Especially for women. Always will be...
Be assured that certain other fields yielded the same kind of results in certain cases. I was a skilled technician who managed to worked my way up slowly, mostly a very little at a time, & then shortly after the year 2000 the pay really dropped. That might not have been the norm, but it sure happened to me. Prior to that, pay was a little better than average in a mostly low-wage part of the country.
I’m 40 years old. So I’m right in the middle of your generation and the younger generation coming in where everything is strictly computers. You could say I get the best of both worlds.
About the pension thingie, surely you must be aware that it’s (ahem) common practice to let the soon to retire (insert publicly employed union person) max their overtime just before they retire so that they can get the maximum, even absurd pension?
Also, about your veterinarian friend, that’s sad. I know a girl from my high school whose Dad was a vet, and they did very well.
Data Centers. Find a niche and learn all you can.
Big Bucks
You are the exception.
Of my graduating class at Iowa State, 80% now work in fields other than engineering. Many in management.
Of those who are still individual engineers, most are self employed.
Few companies want to keep high dollar engineers around. To expensive to the MBA kids, who feel threatened by engineers.
A mentor told me that if you love your field you MIGHT get 10 years before you are considered to old. I pulled off 15, but them realized if I wanted to make more I needed to get into management.
That was not done on the fire department that I worked for. Our pensions are based on the average of the final 5 years salary. We get no preference at all when it comes to overtime in our final five years. The pension fund that we have is fully funded, with fire fighters themselves funding 2/3rds of the expense and fire departments covering 1/3rd. The problem that we have been having is that the teacher's unions have been trying to raid our pension funds through the legislature since they have a huge shortfall.
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