Where are these so-called $100k engineering jobs?

[hoosierEE]

I'm graduating with an Electrical Engineering bachelor's in a few weeks in Indiana.  One of my friends graduated last semester and took a job for $65k in Colorado Springs.  In Indiana the average for recent grads in engineering is more like $60k.

MMM posts about $100k engineering jobs like he's up to his ears in them in Longmont.  But what about for new grads?  What are salaries really like for entry-level software/computer/electrical engineers where you're from?

[iamlindoro]

SF Bay Area is the (potentially obvious) answer.  Software engineers can make 120K starting out here if you land a job at a company with money.  Mediocre engineers should mostly make 100K+ in Silicon Valley.  If you've got 5-10 years of experience 150K shouldn't be hard to find.  Working as a consultant in an in demand field like mobile development (assuming you keep the work coming in and don't mind working 12 hour days/juggling a couple clients at once) can bring in 200K+.

Obviously there are lots of exceptions to this (startups, government jobs, companies in trouble, etc. will generally pay lower).  I have 20 years of IT Industry experience, but have been doing mobile consulting for 3 years or so.  At my current job load, it works out to a little over 200K a year (though when self employed, obviously you can have dry spells, non-paying customers, etc).

YMMV.

Edited to add: And lest you think "oh, but there's also an unmanageable cost of living in the bay area," yes, it's possible to spend a fortune, but it's also possible to spend very, very little.  Rent a room, take public transit, and work at a well funded company in an in-demand field, and you should be able to put HUGE amounts of money away.  Get a few years of experience and then start overlapping some consulting with your full time to supercharge your income.  When you're ready, go fully self employed and work aggressively to secure clients, until you're mostly working from home.  Move to a lower COL area, keep your same clients, and rake it in.

Edit 2: And of course the SF Bay isn't the only answer-- NYC is the same and I have a few clients there as well.  Most major metro areas which are known for tech should have a large number of > 100K Engineering jobs.  Austin, Seattle, etc.

[arebelspy]

There's a difference between starting salary and average salary.

Start at 60k, work your way up to 150 by the end of your career (say 10-15 years later) and have an average 6-figure salary.  60k to start and aggressively moving up isn't bad at all.

[footenote]

Add Minneapolis-St. Paul to iamlindoro's list. Average EE salary here is $75k.

[Russ]

There's a difference between starting salary and average salary.

Start at 60k, work your way up to 150 by the end of your career (say 10-15 years later) and have an average 6-figure salary.  60k to start and aggressively moving up isn't bad at all.

+1

$100k is a pretty lofty goal for a starting salary. It can definitely be done, but you will have to be willing to move (possibly overseas), be very sharp (or at least able to convince people you are), and possibly either sell your soul to work toward a goal you don't agree with or sell your life to work 70 hour weeks.

from A Brief History of the 'Stache:

Year 0 (1997): The Full-time working career begins. Mr. Money Mustache has just finished a grueling computer engineering degree and is now ready to party. He gets right to work in early May, skipping even the University graduation ceremony because he does’t want to miss any work (he had already moved to a new city 300 miles away from the university).
Age: 22
Starting Salary: $41,000.
Student Loans: Zero – due to low spending, about $10k of help from parents, and good high school and summer jobs.
But also absolutely ZERO net worth. No bank balances, never owned a car, just a bike, a backpack, and a diploma.

that's about $58k in today dollars

To answer your specific question, I think anywhere from $50k to $80K would be "normal" for a starting engineer, depending on experience, how great or shitty the job is, benefits, etc. FWIW, I just finished undergrad in MechE and had offers from $17/hr to $75k.

[iamlindoro]

Rather than keep editing, I'll add another response.  Everything here is good and correct advice.  I wanted to add (because it was in my mind today anyway) that obviously increasing income is key, but that resisting lifestyle inflation, especially in engineering where there's too much money and too little sense flying around a lot of the time, is just as important if not more so.

Example: I am a member of a triathlon team (my antimustachian habit, though it is really what I do for vacation, so I figure in the end it about evens out) and there's a thread on our mailing list right now about all the Black Friday deals.  Now, this particular team happens to be coached by <Huge well known silicon valley company's> staff triathlon coach (yeah, they have a staff triathlon coach, among many other insane perks) so most of these guys have <Huge well known silicon valley company's>-level salaries.  These guys are talking about replacing $2K race wheels from last year with absolutely no justification supplied or expected!  I manage to hustle pretty hard and earn close to or the same as these guys, but I keep my mouth firmly shut in these discussions.  Resist the pressure of your peers with too much money!

Forgive all the random advice, it's just easy to come up with stuff I wish someone had said to 21-year-old me :)

[ender]

I'm graduating with an Electrical Engineering bachelor's in a few weeks in Indiana.  One of my friends graduated last semester and took a job for $65k in Colorado Springs.  In Indiana the average for recent grads in engineering is more like $60k.

MMM posts about $100k engineering jobs like he's up to his ears in them in Longmont.  But what about for new grads?  What are salaries really like for entry-level software/computer/electrical engineers where you're from?

How many jobs have you interviewed for and gotten offers for (outside Indiana)?

I live in the midwest and had multiple offers of $70k+ as an engineering graduate in this area and in spite of the cost of living being pretty low.

If you are applying for jobs like the average don't be surprised if you only get the average offer.

[ch12]

I'm graduating with an Electrical Engineering bachelor's in a few weeks in Indiana.  One of my friends graduated last semester and took a job for $65k in Colorado Springs.  In Indiana the average for recent grads in engineering is more like $60k.

MMM posts about $100k engineering jobs like he's up to his ears in them in Longmont.  But what about for new grads?  What are salaries really like for entry-level software/computer/electrical engineers where you're from?

How many jobs have you interviewed for and gotten offers for (outside Indiana)?

I live in the midwest and had multiple offers of $70k+ as an engineering graduate in this area and in spite of the cost of living being pretty low.

If you are applying for jobs like the average don't be surprised if you only get the average offer.

My brother-in-law has a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue and it took him a couple of months to find a job. Everyone says that engineers will always have a job; it's true to some extent, but you do have to search far and wide for one. He eventually got a job working for a big multinational company with their office in Louisville. He later finagled a transfer to Denver, where he grew up and where his family is.

Almost all of my male friends from high school went into engineering. All of them seem to be in rather extended co-ops. One of them is in software engineering and I don't know if he's finished/finishing his degree. He's been working for GE for more than a year now.

It may not be reasonable to expect a starting salary above $100k outside of large metropolitan centers with a correspondingly high COL, but you can definitely get into the range that the posters here say you can. I know that the company where I work pays $60k to somewhere in the seventies for people with engineering degrees. We're perpetually hiring and you can PM me if you are curious.

[hoosierEE]

Wow, thank you all for the quality responses.

I've focused on applying in my town (Bloomington, population 82k).

Less aggressively, I've applied to jobs in Austin (2nd pick after Bloomington), the Bay area, and the UK.  No responses to my online applications yet.

I've had interviews with 5 local companies, and just got my first offer ($44k for "tech support engineer").  I have a 2nd interview next week for a "production engineer" job which I hope will offer closer to $60k.  That number is what I need to kill the student loans and start home ownership in about 2 years.

@ch12: PMing you now.

[mm1970]

As far as I can tell, the answer really is the Bay Area.

I'm in semiconductors.  The new engineers in this field are getting more like $60-$70k if they AREN'T in SF Bay.  We, of course, pay less, but we are in Santa Barbara so we get people who are willing to be paid less to live here.

My junior engineers with 3 years of experience are making in the low 70's.

10-20 years here gets you $80k to $130k (wide range).  It would be much higher in the SF Bay area.

[spider1204]

I started a job in KY at $70k as a mobile developer in a pretty low cost area.  I also graduated as an EE but was always more interested in software and so put a few months into learning more about software engineering and mobile development.  So you can definitely do that kind of work if you're interested as an Electrical Engineer.

[Russ]

I also want to point out that all the high starting salary companies I know of also have a lot of burnout. Only you can know where you fall on this, but be wary of taking a job you can "tolerate" for a couple grand more in salary. That tolerance can go away faster than you expect.

[spider1204]

I also want to point out that all the high starting salary companies I know of also have a lot of burnout. Only you can know where you fall on this, but be wary of taking a job you can "tolerate" for a couple grand more in salary. That tolerance can go away faster than you expect.

Indeed, I interviewed at a place in San Francisco, and asked some of the employees why they liked it there.  One of the responses was that it was kinda laid back and they only worked 60 hours a week unlike some of their friends at other companies.

[ender]

I also want to point out that all the high starting salary companies I know of also have a lot of burnout. Only you can know where you fall on this, but be wary of taking a job you can "tolerate" for a couple grand more in salary. That tolerance can go away faster than you expect.

Indeed, I interviewed at a place in San Francisco, and asked some of the employees why they liked it there.  One of the responses was that it was kinda laid back and they only worked 60 hours a week unlike some of their friends at other companies.

Only 60 hours? WIN WIN WIN.

[MrsPete]

If you're looking for $100,000 as a starting salary -- even in a high-paying field like engineering -- you're almost certain to be disappointed. 

[galaxie]

I have one, but I also have a Ph.D.

[bacchi]

Petroleum engineers can pull down $100k in an entry level position. They're unlikely to be working in an urban area of course.

Agree with the others. For ÇS/EE, you're looking at ~$65k.

[Spork]

While the obvious answers are "Bay area"... I'll also throw this out there:  There can be HUGE differences by location even for cities a couple of hours from each other.  It is all supply/demand.  I moved 100 miles and found the offerings to be slim and the pay to be 1/2 the pay.  The trade-off was for personal reasons... and for me I still think I made the right choice.

[GuitarStv]

Petroleum engineers can pull down $100k in an entry level position. They're unlikely to be working in an urban area of course.

Agree with the others. For ÇS/EE, you're looking at ~$65k.

I'm in computer engineering and have been out of university for eight years.  I keep tabs on my friends from school and how they're doing.

When we started, salary range was from about 37 - 52.  At the moment salary range is from 75 - 110.  The problem is that the demands of the work appear to go up the more that they pay you.  I'm not sure I'd jump for a job paying 200k a year if I had to put in 70 hr work weeks on average . . .

[dragoncar]

I also want to point out that all the high starting salary companies I know of also have a lot of burnout. Only you can know where you fall on this, but be wary of taking a job you can "tolerate" for a couple grand more in salary. That tolerance can go away faster than you expect.

But this is fine if your plan is to jump start your stache, get a great name on your resume, and then move on to simpler times.  Which is what I think a lot of this "burnout" is.  Same happens in law -- people work crazy hours for a couple years to pay off their loans and then jump ship as soon as the loans are gone

[hoosierEE]

I'm not expecting $100k as a starting salary as an EE, but I am expecting over $60k.

I should add that I've been applying to mostly software engineering positions since that is more exciting to me than working in a power plant or doing support for 20 year old military contractor equipment.

I'm sure if I start applying to more "typical" EE positions and tolerate a longer commute more options will open up.  But plan A is still to find a $65k high-tech job within biking distance. :)


During school I've also been raising a family and working full time, so I figure going to a 70 hour work week will feel pretty normal, and a 60 hour work week will feel like a vacation.

[mm1970]

I have one, but I also have a Ph.D.

I have one, but I've been working for 21 years.

My husband has one, but he's a PhD also.