National Engineers Week: Feb 19-25

EWEEK ^ | Feb. 19, 2005 | various

[1rudeboy]

You were talking about "an Engineering Ph.D. with 10+ years of experience and a good track record" making a "top end" salary of $110K. You just posted information that shows the average salary of an Engineering Ph.D. of uncertain experience is $119K. One doesn't have to be an engineer to see the difference, but thanks for posting anyway. We could've saved a lot of time if you had responded to my original request.

[HolgerDansk]

You were talking about "an Engineering Ph.D. with 10+ years of experience and a good track record" making a "top end" salary of $110K.

Go back and read the thread. The $110k figure was for government employment, mid-career, and from a recruiter in that field, not me, though it reflects my experience. So, not only was that figure double (now triple) sourced, but it wasn't what you claimed, a "starting salary". And as I said here, that's close to the top for what a non-managment, in government engineer with a Ph.D. can expect to make, with those provisos. The survey numbers bear that out.

[HolgerDansk]

Perhaps our disagreement comes from context. By "top end" I mean the high end of the salary band for someone at a certain career state. I think you mean "top end" to be the most that anyone in that career (regardless of state) will make, ever. Which is not what I'm saying at all, because the state context of the thread was "EE Ph.D., with 10+ years of experience, government employment, non-managerial".

[indthkr]

"government jobs are very stable, offer good pensions, etc."

Based on current trends, down the road most people who do engineering in the U.S. will probably be either working for the government directly, or via a Defense Contractor (basically the same thing).

[oceanview]

IT, EE, ME - its all up for grabs now. safer bets are civil engineering, because they have to be located with the projects (for the most part), and anything related to the defense department.

[indthkr]

RE53: Spot on post.

"the nuns literally told us to leave because "it is immoral to recruit into a dead profession".

That's pretty stunning for them to say that, unfortunately it's also true.

[1rudeboy]

Perhaps our disagreement comes from context.

We finally agree on something. :)
Let's simply leave it at that, and move on to more important things elsewhere. Thank you for the link, again.

[webstersII]

"Some days I think I should quit and get rehired with bonuses because of my TS/SCI."

Yeah, if you can stand the cr@p you have to put up with when you work for a DOD contractor. I sure got sick of it.

[Tijeras_Slim]

14 years and counting.

The real problem is that there's one customer and they suck.

[Hatteras]

You mean this is for all engineers? Not just African-American engineers? Is that legal?

[Hatteras]

"I have a Ph.D. in EE, from a Tier One school, a successful track record in research and development, a half dozen patents, and I'm in my early 40s, white male US citizen. I live in Silicon Valley. I have been told more than two dozen times in the past three years that I'm "overqualified" for any Engineering job by recruiters like yourself (nobody wants excellence because nobody wants to pay for excellence)."

So... Are you working at Lowe's or Home Depot?

[webstersII]

"14 years and counting.

The real problem is that there's one customer and they suck."

That sounds very familiar. Then you throw in the fact that the DoD contractors are always sucking up to that one customer, and trying to out-PC each other in their adoption of every new workplace fad. It gets old.

[HolgerDansk]

So... Are you working at Lowe's or Home Depot?

For the moment, neither. I'm working as a management consultant here and there, mostly for larger companies, while trying to get yet another startup off the ground. I can also tell you that the most common question we've been asked by venture capitalists is our willingness to outsource overseas.

[fso301]

I have a friend who does high level industrial training and he advised me to dumb down my resume. It worked for him and at least in responses, it is generating more activity for me.

Hiring managers who long since escaped that "awfull" technical work don't want to hire someone showing any evidence of a desire to replace them lest they lose their job and end up in the lighting department at Lowes.

As such, a senior engineer could replace them but such engineer who shows years in a technical capacity without supervisory roles is likely to get a chance even from the typical Yuppie-TechnicalWorkHating- Inept-BS'ing-Supervisor.