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What's the typical salary progression for an engineer?

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SeductivePig

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I started my first full time job a week ago as a power systems engineer for a small design/consulting firm.. they started me off at 61k, and I had no experience.

Does it go by a yearly basis?

They mentioned a bonus for people who have a P.E. license, how much is that normally?

I was hoping to get a 5k increase every year, don't know if that's realistic or not.
 
Printer Bandit said:
3-5% per year

20-30% if switching jobs
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damn.. 3-5% is low!

what happens when I get my P.E. license?

I already have a side job that I work for 20 hours out of the week that brings in an extra 14k/year.. was hoping the salary increases would be better.

at this rate I'd be looking at 75k from my career job by 30.. that's crap to be honest.

I really wanted to hit 100k by the time I turned 30.
 
crazypraveen said:
d**n.. 3-5% is low!

what happens when I get my P.E. license?

I already have a side job that I work for 20 hours out of the week that brings in an extra 14k/year.. was hoping the salary increases would be better.

at this rate I'd be looking at 75k from my career job by 30.. that's crap to be honest.

I really wanted to hit 100k by the time I turned 30.
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well work hard and you just might

and %3 to %5 raise is not low, its awesome
 
crazypraveen said:
damn.. 3-5% is low!

what happens when I get my P.E. license?

I already have a side job that I work for 20 hours out of the week that brings in an extra 14k/year.. was hoping the salary increases would be better.

at this rate I'd be looking at 75k from my career job by 30.. that's crap to be honest.

I really wanted to hit 100k by the time I turned 30.
Click to expand...

When the engineering market was much better you could have been at 70-72k in 2-3 years and 80-85k in 4-6 years. It's was extremely uncommon for an engineer to make 100k by 30 even when things were better.
 
if you want to make a lot of money in any field, you should appear to your owners as somebody who generates a lot of business for their company. most places have a sales team for this, which isn't a bad place to be.

other option is to demonstrate you can lead a team of people. This is where having a PE helps because you can build a team and be self sufficient from a legal standpoint, so the company can give you and your team some autonomy. if you do good work in this capacity, it's an easy argument for more money from your current company or easy to switch companies if your owner is poor or an idiot.

With a PE, you can also run your own practice or partnership, but not recommended until you learn how to win jobs. this is the most intuitive method to earning megabucks as a power engineer, but running a business is hard, complicated work and a lot of smart people fail at it.

You might get close to 100k at 30 as just a contributing engineer, but that's on the high end. definitely depends on your location. wont' get paid much more than that for the rest of your career, without filling one of the 3 roles from above.
 
I don't really recommend staying with your first job for too long. You need to switch jobs before you stabilize in order to build experience, and like printer bandit said, you gain most from switching jobs.
 
crazypraveen said:
damn.. 3-5% is low!

what happens when I get my P.E. license?

I already have a side job that I work for 20 hours out of the week that brings in an extra 14k/year.. was hoping the salary increases would be better.

at this rate I'd be looking at 75k from my career job by 30.. that's crap to be honest.

I really wanted to hit 100k by the time I turned 30.
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Seriously? Really?

While your goals are not completely unrealistic if you are a superstar and you bust your ass. However most people are not and will not.
 
in europe an engineer would start on 17-19k euro a year ($22-25k) .. so i say you're not doing too bad.
 
Look ya ding-dong we're talking about professionals that strip sparks of creation from the mind of GOD and make them manifest on earth.

Not some buck-tooted harry Brit that sits around making saying 'rightey-O' and making his ride go choo-choo.


OP

From an HR stand point every year that you don't jump ship is another year that I get your services on the cheap. You need to be willing to move from job to job; the company has NO loyalty to you, it can't, it's against the f*ing law! you should have NO loyalty to it.
 
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crazypraveen said:
I started my first full time job a week ago as a power systems engineer for a small design/consulting firm.. they started me off at 61k, and I had no experience.

Does it go by a yearly basis?

They mentioned a bonus for people who have a P.E. license, how much is that normally?

I was hoping to get a 5k increase every year, don't know if that's realistic or not.
Click to expand...
I think you did great I know couple guys same position $35- $40
 
crazypraveen said:
damn.. 3-5% is low!

what happens when I get my P.E. license?

I already have a side job that I work for 20 hours out of the week that brings in an extra 14k/year.. was hoping the salary increases would be better.

at this rate I'd be looking at 75k from my career job by 30.. that's crap to be honest.

I really wanted to hit 100k by the time I turned 30.
Click to expand...

LOL, you need to be realistic. In this economy and over the past few years, 3%-5% is a pretty good raise. As Printer Bandit said, the way to increase your salary more quickly is to jump between jobs.

But, be careful -- jumping too often will effectively get you blacklisted and interviewers will drill you on why you've moved around so much.
 
crazypraveen said:
I started my first full time job a week ago as a power systems engineer for a small design/consulting firm.. they started me off at 61k, and I had no experience.

Does it go by a yearly basis?

They mentioned a bonus for people who have a P.E. license, how much is that normally?

I was hoping to get a 5k increase every year, don't know if that's realistic or not.
Click to expand...

Promotions, promotions, switching jobs. Who the hell 'rises' through 3-5% raises? That's BARELY beating inflation.

Engineer -> IT Manager -> IT Director -> VP of IT, etc...

The smarter you are, you learn to network and socialize wisely. Yes, you can be the technical brainiac, but the one who will rise to the top will be the brainiac who also knew how to network.

In this tech forum, lots of people take blind pride in technical expert and 'hating people'. That shit won't get you far. Less hands-on you do and more decision making you do -> More $$$ in every industry (hospital director, army general, business boss, etc)
 
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Zeze said:
Promotions, promotions.

Engineer -> IT Manager -> IT Director

The smarter you are, you learn to network and socialize wisely. Yes, you can be the technical brainiac, but the one who will rise to the top will be the brainiac who also knew how to network.
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To clarify, he is a real engineer, not an IT "engineer." Some people, like me, are both. 🙂

The point about socialization and networking is good, though it has little to do with being "smarter." The number of complete idiots I've seen in high positions is mind-boggling.
 
IndyColtsFan said:
LOL, you need to be realistic. In this economy and over the past few years, 3%-5% is a pretty good raise. As Printer Bandit said, the way to increase your salary more quickly is to jump between jobs.

But, be careful -- jumping too often will effectively get you blacklisted and interviewers will drill you on why you've moved around so much.
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"Money. I moved because I'm good and someone was wiling to pay for it. Further I always allowed my current employer to match to keep me"

"I'm moving here because I'm good and you're willing to pay for good. The day I'm not worth it you'll fire me and the day you won't match what I'm worth I'll give my notice"
 
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crazypraveen said:
I started my first full time job a week ago as a power systems engineer for a small design/consulting firm.. they started me off at 61k, and I had no experience.

Does it go by a yearly basis?

They mentioned a bonus for people who have a P.E. license, how much is that normally?

I was hoping to get a 5k increase every year, don't know if that's realistic or not.
Click to expand...

$5k a year isn't realistic at all. You're going to to get a few percent a year if you're good and the company doesn't do a raise freeze like many are doing right now. If that happens, then you won't get anything.

You'll get the biggest increase in pay if you start going up the chain and bumping up in job titles. Often you don't even have to switch your role in the company to go to a higher job title that comes with higher pay. For example, when I went from Engineer I to Engineer II at my company I stayed in the same group doing the same work. However, I got a 12% raise. Going up in job titles is the fastest way to go up in pay. When you're starting out its expected that the people that are good can go up a title about every 2 years. The people that aren't good can take double that.

Find out if your company will bump you up a job title (and pay) without moving around. For example, can you go from Engineer I to Engineer II without applying for another job inside the company? In some they'll bump up your title (and your pay) if you're doing well and have put in enough time. In others you need to apply for internal positions that have the job title you're looking for to get bumped up.

One last thing, if you're so set on making a salary over $100k you probably should have done your research before you entered the field. It's a bit late to say that you don't like the compensation.
 
DixyCrat said:
"Money. I moved because I'm good and someone was wiling to pay for it. Further I always allowed my current employer to match to keep me".
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Many employers will match an offer you get and then hire someone for you to train and ditch you at the first possible moment. If money is an issue, you should ask your current employer for a raise and if they don't give you one, find another job and just leave. They had their chance.
 
many companies did zero raise for everyone in 2009-2010
last year, 2011, company i work at finally gave us 2% across the board, no merit consideration
 
I started at $50k, was at $72k, by three years, and then just $6k of raises over the next three years when the economy changed.
 
FoBoT said:
many companies did zero raise for everyone in 2009-2010
last year, 2011, company i work at finally gave us 2% across the board, no merit consideration
Click to expand...

Mine was doing about a 2% raise pool, meaning that the department had a pool of money for raises equal to 2% of the total salary in the department. If you got more than 2% it meant somebody somewhere else got less. I got a raise that was over 7% so there must have been some very unhappy people in my department this year.
 
And to the OP, you should be plenty happy with 3-5% raises right now. Matter of fact, you should be thankful just to be employed.
 
This tone actually annoys me. I know people that have recently graduated with physics and accounting degrees that can't even find jobs. And he's whining about not making $100k.
 
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