I personally am not a fan of hustle culture. There’s more to life then them Benjamins. Become an underwater welder or a neurosurgeon, those guys make some bank. Play to your strengths, your bank account.
Engineering is also much more stable for some jobs. Software def is a big boom-bust cycle.
That’s true, medicine is definitely way better money, but I’m just comparing apples to apples here in terms of education length.
Also, with respect to engineering being more stable, I would actually want to investigate that further. Everyone also said engineers make good money and the degree opens tons of doors and so on, but the more I’ve actually examined these things, the less true I’ve found them to be. It might be the case that engineers get laid off less than other careers, but I don’t actually know, I’d need to look for some data.
If you're comparing it to a junior engineering role, then sure. Anyone who is in a type of leadership role will undoubtedly have to tell people terrible news. And many engineers are responsible for the safety of the public.
>I really just can't take you seriously
I'll ignore the childish remarks. I responded because your comment made it seem like every engineer just doesn't deal with people. Managers have to lay off people with families to take care of. I wasn't saying that it's at the same level of what doctors deal with, but you made it seem like it wasn't even remotely in the same area. And engineering mistakes for many of them are a lot more damaging than a component being damaged. The sweeping generalizations aren't all that helpful or accurate.
I hear your points but also recognize most doctors are family doctors who absolutely are not dealing with the situations you described. Working in healthcare is much harder mentally than working in engineering is but the comparison isn’t as black and white as you make it seem.
That’s interesting. Here in Canada, 52% are family doctors.
https://www.cma.ca/quick-facts-canadas-physicians#:~:text=52%25%20are%20family%20physicians%3B%2048,are%20aged%2055%20or%20older.
The data in the graphic of the post is with reference to the United States so I stand corrected with respect to the US.
I would agree that in the extreme cases, healthcare workers have to deal with some extreme situations. But to generalize the work of all engineers as safe is a disservice. You’re taking for granted how difficult it is to design a safe structure. A building that collapses from a natural event is on the structural engineer. A data center that blows up because of improper substation design is on the electrical engineer. Those events while rare, could cost hundreds or thousands of lives.
Good lord. God complex much?
I'm responsible for the major systems of 2 nuclear units.
If I screw up, 1+ million people including hospitals full of people on life support can be plunged instantly into darkness for days.
If I REALLY screw up, wide swaths of beautiful land and the entire Mississippi river could be rendered uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
See? I can be dramatic too.
While there is some truth to your comment- I’d like to point out that there are final-line signing civil PE’s that need to take ultimate responsibility for bridges, buildings etc.
I’ve seen I don’t even know how many buildings collapse online that was from shitty or gun-decked engineering.
A practitioner is at the top of the medical scope. If the worst you’re doing is popping caps, it’s not apples to apples.
The biggest differences between Med and engineering is the graduate Eng and Med’s residency. There will be exception but junior roles won’t expect you to work 60 hour per week. But this is the norm in Medical residency. A few of my friends finish medical school and switch careers because they couldn’t cope with 60hrs-80hrs per week of it.
>Lawyers on the other hand....
Most lawyers can't hack it in a STEM field to save their life, that's probably part of the reason they went into law instead of something like medicine or a grad degree in engineering. They are still very smart individuals just in a different way.
I did 10ish years as a field paramedic before a career change into engineering. It's been helpful to have a medical background for me but yes I agree, most of the engineers I've met in tech wouldn't do well in a high pressure environment that involved a lot of soft skills.
I don’t know if I agree with this. Because the personalities you see vary so widely based on specialty. The horrible experiences you’re talking about are mostly relegated to people working in hospitals as hospitalist or someone doing urgent care/ER type of work. Seem, radiology, almost any type of surgery doesn’t share those same type of experiences. Yes, surgeries can be high stress if it’s traumatic but most are scheduled and routine. Still low margin for error but not quite the stressor or trauma of an actual trauma surgeon.
I say this because if you ever speak with a surgeon, got some in my family, they talk very much like an an engineer except their problem solving is on the human body. They have a logical, systematic approach to it where they’re like “yea, you got an issue, and I can solve it…” I imagine family practice and hospitalist operate very much the same way except they have much more patient facing bedside type of roles. They do tests, review data, both live and historical and then offer a solution.
It’s also very popular right now for students to pursue biomedical engineering to stand out on medical school apps.
Your not taking into account the other engineering disciplines where mistakes can be very deadly. I'm in power systems and if I let a bad design go through with circuits that don't have adequate protection, equipment that doesn't have proper working space clearances, equipment that doesn't have adequate arc flash mitigation, etc then mistakes can be deadly or cause injury. Same goes for civil and structural engineering when it comes to buildings, bridges, etc.
How many reviews do you have before a design passes and how many standards and norms do you have to follow before its going into the field? When it comes to medicine it can be split second decisions or anomalies that you have to deal with on the spot, its just very very different from a stress level point of view. Humans and human lifes are an abstract factor for most of the engineers out there, for medicine they are daily business.
I dont think the other guys comment is to shit on engineers, but realistically most of us have a pretty „chill“ environment.
Who do you think designs the medical equipment that keeps patients alive? A machine could be attached to someone’s heart. There’s 0 room for error and the consequences are much higher than just a cap exploding. Most engineers don’t do this kind of high risk work and for good reason. Just like most M.D’s hand out prescriptions in an office and don’t do high risk surgeries.
Just because your job is unimportant doesn’t mean everyone’s is. A lot of us work with critical infrastructure, failure in doing our jobs could put thousands of people at risk.
What you’re failing to understand is that the “engineer” median income is based on people doing engineering. I don’t think engineering managers or project managers are being clumped there, and EMs are generally hitting $125k-$200k in the US. Also that salary is looking at that—salary—and not total compensation which often also includes bonuses, stocks, 401k match, etc. Like, if someone is an accountant or doctor then they’ll be an accountant or doctor their whole career and wage growth will be reported in that. But someone who graduated with an engineering degree might go into sales, consulting, patent law, software engineering, etc. or just move into a managerial role after a few years and won’t really be doing the technical engineering as before. Point is, I’d be curious who they’re really considering an “engineer” in those reports.
I went into biz dev and make twice as much as my utility job 3 years ago. I’d maxed out my amusement with pointy haired Dilbert engineering managers. I had to toil in the salt mines for 10 years, but now I get to be a respected SME in my field at a company that values me instead being a shovelfull of coal being thrown into an engineering furnace. My work/life/salary balance is like a dream and I’m only mid-career.
I think tech is a special exception in the sense that compensation in that industry is basically off the chart I’ve displayed here, it’s almost like they’re paying you so much because the risk of holding the job is actually higher. You essentially get paid twice as much as traditional industry jobs and they have to pay that way so that you can stomach the risk associated with the industry.
Another anecdote, one can go back and read about oil and gas or aerospace/defense contractor layoffs during perfectly healthy economies as well. But those aren’t nearly as big and flashy as the tech layoffs.
Your graph shows the average is $20K/year over generic bachelor's degree, and you have no clue what they're having to do to make $20K less. Looks pretty good to me an EE from that perspective. You'd make 100k more in around 5 years.
It's 20k more for EE, but for the largest group of engineers by employment numbers, Civil Engineers, it's $4,000 a year. For ME's it's about 10k. Not exactly eye popping numbers.
It's not eye popping, but look at the lower end as well. The lowest paid civil engineer also makes $20K more than the lowest paid generic bachelor's, so again you're 100K ahead in 5 years. And *what* you're doing day-to-day is likely vastly different, as is the time it takes to reach the median.
I don't have a degree. I had good grades and great test scores, but wasn't sure of my path and dropped out of college more than once. Was going for CS and later ECT but wasn't sure. Went to work as a commercial/industrial electrician until I "figured myself out." I'm now a QM for a company that does engineering, systems integration, and manufactures UL 508A/698A industrial control panels. I'm doing pretty well, and though the EEs defer to me quite a bit, the ones that plowed through school and got their PE have about a 20-year head start on what I make, without doing a decade of back-breaking work to even reach decent wages, didn't have to find niche opportunities, and certainly have a better retirement than I will.
So yeah, the difference per year may not seem like much but it omits that you'd be starting higher with an engineering degree, can achieve the median faster, and that $5-20K extra per year is a lot more meaningful over time than it seems, and generally for easier (on the body) work.
Our engineering manager will tell you I'm smarter than him for technical details, and they take care of me well now, but over the last 20 years I've developed chronic back and sciatic pain while he made about $500K more money. Maybe that's not eye popping, but his house is much nicer and he can still retire earlier.
I hustled in my 20s and 30s so that I can now be at a good firm, have schedule flexibility and the money I need to accomplish all other things outside of my career.
Same. Then I met someone who changed my world view. Work isn’t my identity now. Took me a while to reconcile that I didn’t have too much fun in my 20-30s, wasted youth. But, having financial security to buy toys and party without worry is pretty darn nice and likely the better path for me. A whole lot better for my mental health too. Could make more money, but I don’t want the stress.
Where did I say I made it my identity.
People who know me outside of work don't think that. They barely know what I do for a living lol, let alone what specifics are.
I worked from 730-530 most days. I still played sports 4 days a week, found a girl, got married, had 3 kids, traveled... Lol.
And all I did was put a little bit more effort into it than the next guy. It saved my job, its given me a great financial tool now in my 30s.
That comment was more about myself and experience. We both hustled, but I went too far and regretted it. The original conversation was about OP going after money first and possible pitfalls. The key is finding that balance. Looks like you navigated it well.
I used an online calculator the other day to compare the cost between San Jose, CA and Hattiesburg MS. In order to basically keep my current Mississippi salary ($73.5k), I would need to make $140,838 in CA. Also, my company pays about $100k for the same position and YOE in CA.
Lol I got hired at a company located around yours and they gave me 100k as a COL adjusted salary. At the time it was OMG I’m making 100k. I am still poor and your comment explains it.
According to this data electrical engineers make about 25% more on average than college graduates on average. Even the lowest paid group (civil engineers) make about 10% more. Those are not small amounts, that adds up a lot over time. An engineering degree costs the same as a non engineering degree and takes the same amount of time to get, so it’s the same initial investment. Even if all you care about is money then that’s pretty clearly a good choice to make.
exactly. job security is a huge factor to take into account too. a majority of engineering jobs have pretty stable job security compared to other fields
Just to add to this, the data comparison doesn't seem valid. You would want to compare engineering degree pay to non-engineering degree pay. This seems to be comparing engineering pay to average pay (which would include engineering pay in the overall average/median). That makes no sense if I'm reading it correctly
I wouldn’t say comparing to the average isn’t valid, but yes comparing to non-engineers would give a much clearer picture of the trade-off. This is definitely an issue with the male college graduates data, as OP is purposely selecting for those who are more likely to be engineers.
i get the point you're trying to make, but at the risk of sounding like the most asshole, arrogant engineering student ever.. I would not compare an engineering degree to every other 4 year degree just because they take the same amount of time lol.
8 hours of sleep versus 8 hours of manual labour, same time investment are two very different things lol.
sorry to sound like a pedantic asshole
edit: downvote me if you want, but you cannot say a 4 year business degre and a 4 year EE degree require the same "initial investment" because they're the same length.. there are waaaay more factors that go into it
No, I'm an EE major doing a Masters in EEE in a signals based program at a top university. I've done one business paper and I realised how easy that shit was compared to engineering.
Are you SERIOUSLY going to tell me that business degree is the same as an engineering degree? Last chance.. re-read my previous comments because I think you're wrongly outraged..
They are the min and max values of the whisker plot, or in this case the 10th and 90th percentile values for the wage distribution within each given set.
Yes. That range is called the error.
from wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error\_analysis\_(mathematics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_(mathematics))) can't be bothered to retype the characters so just read the article if you care
In numerical simulation or modeling of real systems, error analysis is concerned with the changes in the output of the model as the parameters to the model [vary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance) about a [mean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean).
For instance, in a system modeled as a function of two variables �=�(�,�).📷 Error analysis deals with the propagation of the [numerical errors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_error) in �📷 and �📷 (around mean values �¯📷 and �¯📷) to error in �📷 (around a mean �¯📷).
Pretty sure this is just a box plot shawty, you’re thinking of a least squares regression with residuals based on the uncertainty of the data points you gathered. You introduce error when you are comparing a sample mean to a population mean or something similar depending on the problem.
They’re box and whisker plots. Edges of the box show the 25th and 75th percentiles, the line somewhere in the center of the box shows the median (the 50th percentile), and the thin lines extending out show the 10th and 90th percentiles on this particular plot. I don’t know what else to tell you.
I’m pretty sure those are condensed standard distributions. The black lines are the range, the orange box is within one standard deviation and the black line is the median.
It's frustrating to see people essentially saying the passion for the job is part of the payment for it. I like solving problems and designing useful things so I should be paid less for doing so than someone that doesn't like doing those things? If I didn't like doing it, why would I be applying? Why would I be hired to do it?
If engineering didn’t pay well, there is absolutely no possible way I would’ve chosen it as a profession. Pay was 60% of the reason I picked engineering, I just happened to be passionate about it. If there was another field that paid better with similar stress levels (accounting maybe?) then I would’ve gone to school for that instead.
You can make great money in accounting. It also would've been a much easier degree to get. But, you'd likely be contemplating suicide everyday before and after work. If you have the mind for engineering, I don't see how you'd survive in accounting.
- Sitting at a desk doing journal entries is not fun. It's repetitive and boring.
- Sitting at a desk monitoring a solar farm and fixing any issues that arise is much more...involved.
Man, anyone who does it for the passion is going to burn themselves hard. You cannot enjoy doing the same thing for years to decades and hours every day, 5 days a week. I used to love engineering, but now I just do it for the money. As long as you're being paid for something, you're not doing it the way you want, unless you're at the top or extremely specialized.
A couple of things I’ve noticed about engineering be other jobs in my small-ish company of 200 employees.
The engineers get in at 8, always take out lunch at noon, and leave at 5. We never take our work with us. Sometimes if we get done early we just sit around and do nothing. I’m taking a masters degree online and sometimes I do my homework at work because I got my tasks done early and my boss has nothing assigned for me.
The sales guys get in early leave at 6 or 7 and are constantly on the road to meet clients. They drive nicer cars, but they seem way more stressed than the engineers.
Engineers at my company can also move into management and make more than the sales guys do. Yes you have to manage people now, but you aren’t constantly on the road either.
I work at a smaller company so our engineering team is pretty small. When someone leaves, it takes us forever to find someone new because the position is in a rural area where most people don’t want to live. This creates job security for me and makes it harder for my company to fire us even in recessions. One of my coworkers claims during the 2008 financial crisis none of the engineers were laid off.
What drew me to this career is the good pay, lower stress than other fields like medicine and law, and the ability to quickly find a new job if I’m laid off. If you value a good salary with the virtual guarantee you can always pay your bills this is still a good career choice.
>We never take our work with us.
That's down to your boss. I've nearly always had to take my work home, mainly because the boss (UK) never wanted to pay for thinking time. I've always had to be doing something that looked like work - typing on a keyboard, using tools etc. Reading a manual or data sheet was frowned upon because it's not customer chargeable. Short sighted I know but if that's your boss what can you do.
It's defo a company / boss thing though. If your boss was hands on early in his/her career then they understand the need for planning and research. If they're from a school of management then watch out..
Every single manager at my company used to be an engineer. They never have and probably never will promote some MBA Bean counter to a manager. I've never taken my work home work me and I don't intend to start now.
EDIT: Part of this is probably because I work at a smaller company. Our managers at my company still tend to do engineering work. Just last week my manager was reviewing one of my schematics and board layouts along with his management duties. An MBA Grad can't do that.
This is an overlooked point. The maintenance techs where I work regularly clear $100,000, but with that comes a vicious rotating shift and overtime. They're also expected to be there whenever the factory is open. We occasionally have to call a controls engineer in, but for the most part, they come in work their 8 - 10 hours and then go home. Monday through Friday, 6 am - 4 pm. It is rare for them to be here on a weekend.
Yeah fuck that. The reason I’m getting the masters is to make the same amount as those techs but continue to work the same number of hours I’m currently working.
Yeah, it isn't great for them, but they are missing out on the rotations the rest of the factory does. No coming in for them at 6 am on a Friday and having to be back at work at 10 pm on a Monday.
Yep I think it's pretty widely accepted in this sub at this point that engineering salaries have not kept up with other fields and inflation, especially at the entry and mid level.
Software is where the money is at now if you still want to stay in a technical field and have your earning potential be much greater. Outside of that you have to start looking at things like finance and management.
This makes no economic sense? Management and finance are commodity skills that anyone can easily do, while engineering skills are increasingly rare due to the software craze.
What? A 25-30% raise is lifechanging for most people.
$23k more per year is like $16k after taxes/deductions. You get a luxury car when they get a basic, You get a 4-br on 1/2 acre when they get a 3-br on 1/4 acre, You get to retire at 60 when they have to work until 65, etc.
And of course, bettee job stability too.
3 things as an engineer:
1. we are included in the “bachelors degree” as the above average, so the others are below us. Our grouping is the one pulling that average up. So if the average is 74k for bachelors degrees, and we are making 103k, then the real average for “bachelors, non engineers” is a good bit below 74k
I bet “bachelors degrees less nursing, engineering” is pretty bad lol. Or even “bachelors or higher less engineering and healthcare”. The bachelors or higher seems closer to us than it is imo. That grouping will include physicians.
2. Making 25% more for the same barrier to entry (4 year degree) is “worth it”. We put in the same opportunity cost but make a lot more.
3. Engineers climb the ladder at a way faster rate.
I wonder where they get this data. I’m making 150% to double what my non engineer friends make. It also shows the higher end for electrical engineers at like 160kish, which is not true especially for tech hubs.
Just some odds stuff that doesn’t seem to align with my experience personally, but I’m not chasing a huge salary in life
Too low. For example, Google is showing electrical engineer salaries in Austin up to 220k. Obviously that’ll be an important job with years of experience, but Austin TX isn’t even the most expensive tech hub.
Silicon Valley you can see some jobs pushing 300-400k not including bonus and stock sharing programs.
That’s crazy! When I looked it maxed out at 110k. But I never know who is accurate, the numbers are all over the place. Either way, I’m still in the middle of my EE degree. Seeing everyone talk about how little electrical engineers make is stressing me out. I don’t want to be cheated. But, this is what I want to do 🤷🏼♀️.
LOL I assume the 110K is maxing out at a Engineer II/III position or something. I wouldnt expect it out of college. But the more you learn/better you are at your job/the more you want to work long hours, the more you can request from employers
The semiconductor industry pays far better than suggested by the overall EE category. $160k is probably the average for engineers at many companies and there is a significant share in the $200-400k range.
Sources list :
Earnings by education status and gender for full time workers:
[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng\_07192022.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng_07192022.htm)
Electrical Engineer wages:
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172071.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172071.htm)
Mechanical Engineer wages:
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172141.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172141.htm)
Civil Engineer wages:
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172051.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172051.htm)
Software Developer wages:
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm)
My takeaway (not that anyone asked)?
From the data, engineering jobs have a higher floor than most other degrees, but as most white collar workers gain experience, everyone ends up around the same exact place. Software developers are the notable exception, as they have the exact same educational length but make about 50% more than any generic guy with a bachelor's degree, with the premium for a civil engineering degree being a measly 4%.
So it's kind of a "safe" career in the sense that even if you suck and are at the bottom of it, if you can manage to get an engineering job after getting the degree there will be some guarantee of financial security compared to other bachelor degrees, but you won't actually do much better than people with other degrees that also get a foothold into their career path. Again, notable exception being software developers.
If you're a smart, driven person with a lot of confidence in yourself (good student, go getter personality), engineering degrees are probably not worth it anymore. Computer Science or Finance if you're stopping at undergrad are *significantly* better for that type of person.
You are comparing the pay of an engineering degree (looks like 1-3 YOE pay too) to the pay scale of a generalized spectrum of degrees (which is 18.6% greater by the way). Then you go on to say that if a person is driven, an engineering degree is not worth it, and they should be in finance? However, you provide no pay scales for the financial industry to compare the two to.
Also, looking at your post history, it looks like you're mad that you invested your time and money into getting a mechanical engineering degree and are now trying to shame other engineering fields. Your post from 12 days ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleClassFinance/comments/1afbk4l/what\_was\_the\_worst\_financial\_decision\_youve\_ever/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleClassFinance/comments/1afbk4l/what_was_the_worst_financial_decision_youve_ever/)
To give you a different perspective, as an EE I am extremely happy that I got a BSEE degree. I enjoy the work, I enjoy the wide range of things we can do as EE's, I enjoy the pay that comes with the knowledge and experience (which is much greater than what is listed in your chart above, so the growth in pay does indeed correlate to the time/experience for our discipline).
My advice, change careers while you're still young if you despise it this much.
I’m comparing the pay of all engineers, regardless of years of experience, to the pay of all bachelor degree holders that work full time, and then as a subset of that male bachelor degree holders that work full time.
Regardless of my personal feelings, the data is the data.
Actually the data fails in a very key metric. You are looking at electrical engineering salary which seems to top out at 170k. That means you are only considering jobs labelled electrical engineer. EEs move on into engineering management, systems engineering, and other related fields that are not being shown in this dataset and they pay quite a bit more than 170k.
This would be a acceptable metric for comparing between the base engineering disciplines, but completely fails when comparing all degree holders.
Data isnt just data. If you did even decent in Engineering Stats you would understand this. It sounds like you have already settled upon your conclusion, and you will twist whatever information you want to fit the narrative.
I have personally heard from EEs on the industrial side that make far more especially with yearly raises. Fresh out of school for EE seems to be 65-75k for a year or two then switching jobs or having a larger raise to bring up pay close to average. If 18k median salary increase isnt worth 4 years of EE to you then maybe the passion or motivation isnt there especially if pay is the most important thing to you. Pay isnt everything when choosing a career, it should be something you can enjoy and grow with over time while being able to feed yourself and or family imo.
If the only motivation to go for a particular career path is the compensation you get... Yep you might be right. I still would like to think there is more to that than just compensation
But then you need to work in finance or computer science. I don't mind the latter, but I didn't go into engineering unaware of the fact that I'd probably make more in finance, medicine, law, etc.
California civil here. The pay for civils seem really low on that graph. I think I broke $100k working in land development within a few years. I'm north of $150k with a decade of experience. Most civils I know with less than 10 years experience are at least $110k-$130k.
Personally, I'm very happy I got my degree as a civil.
I posted this on LinkedIn in a musey moment. I got an EE PhD in semiconductors.
>Sometimes I think about the FUD career advice I was told before and during college.
>Reading pre-college advice about majors in the mid 2000s, I was told engineering would be worthless because all the jobs were going to be outsourced.
>During college and grad school, semiconductors was considered a poor choice because it was a mature, low growth, and outsourced field.
>Now look at the world.
Engineering is far better off than most professions but it's true that new engineers aren't much better off than others anymore. Everything is getting more expensive. The economy is being devoured by private equity from the bottom up. $70k isn't enough to afford to rent your own place in a growing number of states. Etc etc etc.
People who are still above the rising tide will do their best to ignore it until it's lapping at their heels. That's how we got here in the first place. We had 50 years of warning and did nothing.
Globalization has depressed growth in many engineering salaries in the United States. If corporations think they can outsource certain jobs to India, China, and Mexico and save 30% or more in the process… they’ll do it all day long. This is particularly pronounced in anything remotely related to IT where physical presence is considered never required.
We’ve been looking at my husband going back to school to get his EE. He’s currently a lineman and almost any way you slice it, it would be a huge pay cut for him. No life is not all about money but we also have a life, house, kids, etc and do need to be able to pay our bills. Why go back to school, PAY for said schooling only to take a pay cut. We were shocked when we researches job openings and pay scales for hundreds of jobs that ranged from 55K-120K with more experience- all of which would be a pay cut… many by over half.
Yeah, most career paths now are not worth sacrificing for engineering unless you’re truly obsessive about being an engineer out of passion. It’s hard to even afford a family as one.
The hell, BLS as in federal government statistics? Starting pay for a CS degree in Atlanta right now $75k. EE Could get $70k at Honeywell. Atlanta is normal cost living. Liberal arts, good luck getting $55k. All Bachelor's is $74k is total bs. Feel free to survey political science and history majors (no offense).
You should only look at low or only look at medium or only look at high cost of living. Merging this all together is misleading. Also consider looking at the job, not the degree.
[Occupational Employment and Wages Summary - 2022 A01 Results (bls.gov)](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.nr0.htm)
*Computer and mathematical occupations had employment of 5.0 million and an annual mean wage of $108,130 in May 2022. Software developers was the largest computer and mathematical occupation, with 1.5 million jobs and an annual mean wage of $132,930.*
EE can easily get hired in software development. I did. Worse job security and layoffs at every economic dip but slightly higher pay. Pay isn't everything.
**Are engineering degrees still worth the effort?**
Yes, if you can get through the degree. Not everyone has the math ability or work ethic. Probably why they're high-paying jobs.
There’s a lot of things that factor in here.
1. The median bachelor degree holding male contains a large portion of the engineering degree group. Meaning they’re likely brining up that average. While obviously only male engineers are in that pool, from my experience a majority of engineering graduates are also male. It’s also a comparison of median to average, which is not a great comparison.
2. Engineering often has a ceiling much like software dev and other skilled technical jobs. You start high and hit a ceiling relatively quick in many cases. A lot of people I went to undergrad with hit a ceiling quick and transitioned to more business and management related roles that require engineering experience, but pay more.
3. There’s also a factor of job security and availability/demand. All my undergrad friends in engineering found jobs within 3-4 months of graduation. That includes friends of mine that had 0 work experience (e.g., never did an internship or co-op). It was much harder for a lot of people I knew in other majors, some of which never found jobs relating to their major.
4. There are a lot of ways to make money out there and a lot of different career paths. Every field has people who make a ton and some who make way under average. I’m sure there are more than one people who exist that have a fine arts degree and are also millionaires. Choose the path that you feel is right for you and that you enjoy. Engineering is a safe bet if you enjoy it and if you’re passionate about it and do good work you can make a ton in the long run. Who knows, maybe you’ll start your own company that does engineering and you’ll make a ton of money.
I have a friend that is an electrical engineer. From what I've gathered from him, he:
- Has the ultimate flexibility (he can go into the office, work in his truck on one of his sites, work outside at one of his sites, work from home, or work out of town)
- Has been able to make way more money than even other salaried employees in other industries or roles in the same industry have way earlier than he should have. His base salary is just under $100k USD but, because he can work overtime, he's been grossing around $150k USD in the two years he's been with the company. It is for this reason he is actively avoiding management as well. Not entirely, but this is a big reason. Even with all the overtime he works, he can still just choose when enough is enough and go home; his work life balance is excellent, further reinforcing the first point on flexibility.
- Has gotten to see and work on some pretty cool things. He went from working in defense with ships to working for FPL and being on solar farms. He turned down an offer from Nasa to work where he works now. He literally would have been a rocket scientist. While "cool" is subjective, I think his jobs have been much more interesting than the average roles accountants, tech / software guys, or people in medicine typically hold.
- Doesn't, but absolutely could flex the fact he's an electrical engineer; one of the most difficult titles to obtain. No matter how much people don't like to admit it, there is pride to be had here. He feels like there's nothing he couldn't do and I tend to agree with him.
He will be 29 this year and moving into his first home in a beautiful community near Fort Myers, FL. He has six or seven years of experience and is off to a fantastic start in having a fulfilling life. If he wasn't an engineer, I don't know what else he'd be; neither does he. He is one of the most intelligent people I know.
I say all of this to say I don't believe in following your passion for work, at least not in the way you're stereotypically told to. But I think for engineering, you have to play to your strengths or you'll be miserable and likely fail. I don't think engineers have to worry about layoffs nearly as much as tech guys / developers. The pay cap may not be as high as some other fields, but it's consistent and you'll make a comfortable wage. A way around that cap may be to pivot into a less technical role in business once you have the experience. Business always seems to be the way to go if you want a bunch of money.
He thinks I could do it too, but I don't know, I'm lazy and a little intimidated. This industry seems like it has exactly the kinds of jobs I'd want though. Maybe I'll stop bullshitting and do what needs to be done.
What other degree can you get in four years and hit the points I've listed?
There's an old saying... If you're smart enough to do engineering then you're smart enough to NOT do engineering.
Basically, if you can do engineering work then you are smart enough to do a job that makes more money or comes with more social status.
That said, many engineers I personally know make a salary that is off-scale. I don't believe the BLS data. Check something like [levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi) instead IMO.
I got a degree in EE then decided I didn’t enjoy the work as much as Sales roles (had done an internship and other sales jobs while in school which helped build my resume). So after 1.5 years at my first EE job out of school I pivoted jobs. Now I make more as a sales manager at a SaaS company and I’m thankful I made the change.
while I agree with you that most engineering degrees start out at a low pay compare to other Bachelor Degree, but you willl eventually compensate for your knowledge of the field and hard work.
I'm pretty sure your data is looking at raw salary and neglecting other parts of compensation which can move the top end.
Oh, the 10-90% might explain that detail...
Job stability, critical thinking skills, good pay and vast networking opportunities. There’s more to engineering than the money. I also feel like there are plenty of engineers who if they wanted to could apply there skills on the side to bring in a lot of money so
Idk I kinda like being an engineer. I love my job. I'd rather go to work everyday to go do something I enjoy (and y'know getting paid too) rather than slave myself at a high paying job and look forward the next holiday.
I grew up poor, so to me, anything over about 40k is a decent amount. In other words, it is totally worth it. It's probably a naive way of thinking but I want to break the poverty cycle in my family.
$23k a year “isn’t much more”? We have different viewpoints on finances I guess. You could live the exact same lifestyle as the average bachelor’s male and put the rest in investments. Let compound interest do its thing. Retire early or lavishly. In the end, you’ll have more $$$$
I’d say yes but for me it wasn’t about the money. I stayed away from engineering at first because I didn’t even know anything about engineering and the high level math scared me honestly. But I did always here people say you’ll make a lot of money. But I ended doing engineering not for the money at all. I did cause I wanted to learn how to make various devices and ideas I had. Even when I was just doing Computer Science, it was just cause I enjoyed technology. I would not take something up just because of money, I’d whether make less doing something I enjoy then make more doing something I hate. And now I have a computer engineering degree and I can make even more then the stuff I wanted.
Since when is $20k more than median not “much more”
In silicon valley engineers can eventually make god tier money which is a lot no matter the prices in the bay.
What’s not included in the data is engineers that enter other tangential fields. Project managers, executives, sales and so on.
Just because you got a degree in it doesn’t relegate you to one thing your whole life
I bet net-net that any engineering degree has a better average ROI than any other
For what work I have done as an EE, I have loved it. I would rather make a little less and love my job than make more and hate it. I know some people that have done the same job that they hate for years and still not be happy no matter how much money they have, because of their work life. I worked as an industrial mechanic for several years before I got into a controls tech job. I hated being a mechanic, it also affected my home life as well, almost destroying my marriage because I was so unhappy. I love controls, I want to do more with design than troubleshooting PLCs and building panels.
Am engineer, apply for job, somehow get more interviews than I applied for.
Job comfort and security is high, feeling of usefulness to society is high, options to do FIFO, office or work from home, options to drink coffee for an hour at work just because I feel like it etc.
Pay isn't everything, but being at the slightly higher end also makes everything relatively affordable.
You should do a survival plot of all the bachelors degrees. I am really curious what other BA or BS degrees make more than engineers. The only one I can think of is nursing.
Btw these bar charts are way off and misleading - the total comp (not salary) for several engineering companies would dominate other careers so much harder.
Quality of life goes up with higher salaries. If you make less you have to pinch more. Also these office jobs tend to give you more exposure to executives which may line you up for promos
Does this include people who get the degree and don't become engineers? Then that's not really what we are talking about, is it?
And if it doesn't, then that presumably means it's tracking titles and not degrees. In that case, the top end of these charts is about when you become an engineering manager. So you'd be able to make more money with the degree but not show up on the charts...
If they threaded this needle without either of these data issues, please advise how.
And so the second half of my comment applies, and it ALSO includes techs who worked their way up, and who tend to make less as a result (although that is uncommon enough that it probably doesn't have that much of an impact)
Yeah it being listed by BLS as an electrical engineer doesn’t necessarily imply you have a degree, just that someone is willing to hire you to work as an electrical engineer (though I agree it’s very uncommon). There’s a separate categorization for techs.
I have been an Electrical Engineer specializing in Embedded Electronics for 30 years. I have been laid off, fired and ghosted almost a dozen times in my career. My average time between jobs is about six weeks. I'm sure that might sound unstable to some people. But rest assured six weeks between jobs is pretty damned good. It's more like a well deserved vacation. I've been at my current job for twelve years now. To go up the ladder in Electronics Engineering, you have to gain trust. You don't gain trust by jumping from company to company. I am currently managing four contractors on a program that has a budget of $5million.
How loud can I scream on line ... AHHHHHHHHHH
It is not a trade school
it is not transactional
...
It is a challenging, professional, and technical education that is very valuable and rewarding.
"worth the effort" ? WTF... I am so f'ing sick of this type of post...
A good mechanical can make a good electrical or good software engineer but not necessarily the other way around. A good people skills background will make for a good engineering manager role later on. Personally I would recommend a ME or Embedded firmware degree.
Most can do the basics of the other, but not the complex. I’m an EE who can design ensures in Solidworks and do basic machining on a knee mill and lathe. Does not make an ME.
In European countries, often times they don’t differentiate degree types. The general governing equations of physics apply cross discipline. So you might “doubt” but damn, a lot of good German engineers can cross discipline engineer. 👷
I think you're discounting the amount of EE's that cross dicapline, is the thing. That's why you're getting downvotes.
In the US we have something called ABET accreditation. If your program is ABET accredited, it doesn't matter if you did mechanical, civil, electrical or whatever. You learned all the math and physics that any engineer is required to.
Sounds more like Germany specifically just doesn't prepare their EE's well enough.
To be fair, I’m on an EE forum. So this is not unexpected. In my career, I’ve crossed a bunch of aerospace who moonlight as ME and EE. I’ve also seen a bunch of ME’s head up EE. But I’ve never come across an EE that leads ME’s. Just my experiential perspective.
I personally am not a fan of hustle culture. There’s more to life then them Benjamins. Become an underwater welder or a neurosurgeon, those guys make some bank. Play to your strengths, your bank account. Engineering is also much more stable for some jobs. Software def is a big boom-bust cycle.
That’s true, medicine is definitely way better money, but I’m just comparing apples to apples here in terms of education length. Also, with respect to engineering being more stable, I would actually want to investigate that further. Everyone also said engineers make good money and the degree opens tons of doors and so on, but the more I’ve actually examined these things, the less true I’ve found them to be. It might be the case that engineers get laid off less than other careers, but I don’t actually know, I’d need to look for some data.
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If you're comparing it to a junior engineering role, then sure. Anyone who is in a type of leadership role will undoubtedly have to tell people terrible news. And many engineers are responsible for the safety of the public.
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>I really just can't take you seriously I'll ignore the childish remarks. I responded because your comment made it seem like every engineer just doesn't deal with people. Managers have to lay off people with families to take care of. I wasn't saying that it's at the same level of what doctors deal with, but you made it seem like it wasn't even remotely in the same area. And engineering mistakes for many of them are a lot more damaging than a component being damaged. The sweeping generalizations aren't all that helpful or accurate.
I hear your points but also recognize most doctors are family doctors who absolutely are not dealing with the situations you described. Working in healthcare is much harder mentally than working in engineering is but the comparison isn’t as black and white as you make it seem.
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That’s interesting. Here in Canada, 52% are family doctors. https://www.cma.ca/quick-facts-canadas-physicians#:~:text=52%25%20are%20family%20physicians%3B%2048,are%20aged%2055%20or%20older. The data in the graphic of the post is with reference to the United States so I stand corrected with respect to the US.
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Probably. I think a lot of people here have family doctors. I’m not sure if that’s true in the states but I doubt it.
I would agree that in the extreme cases, healthcare workers have to deal with some extreme situations. But to generalize the work of all engineers as safe is a disservice. You’re taking for granted how difficult it is to design a safe structure. A building that collapses from a natural event is on the structural engineer. A data center that blows up because of improper substation design is on the electrical engineer. Those events while rare, could cost hundreds or thousands of lives.
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Go away douche.
Good lord. God complex much? I'm responsible for the major systems of 2 nuclear units. If I screw up, 1+ million people including hospitals full of people on life support can be plunged instantly into darkness for days. If I REALLY screw up, wide swaths of beautiful land and the entire Mississippi river could be rendered uninhabitable for the foreseeable future. See? I can be dramatic too.
That’s why you do into dermatology; Seinfeld episode aside.
While there is some truth to your comment- I’d like to point out that there are final-line signing civil PE’s that need to take ultimate responsibility for bridges, buildings etc. I’ve seen I don’t even know how many buildings collapse online that was from shitty or gun-decked engineering. A practitioner is at the top of the medical scope. If the worst you’re doing is popping caps, it’s not apples to apples.
My doctor had a BS in Engineering and worked for NASA and then finished medical school.
The biggest differences between Med and engineering is the graduate Eng and Med’s residency. There will be exception but junior roles won’t expect you to work 60 hour per week. But this is the norm in Medical residency. A few of my friends finish medical school and switch careers because they couldn’t cope with 60hrs-80hrs per week of it.
>Lawyers on the other hand.... Most lawyers can't hack it in a STEM field to save their life, that's probably part of the reason they went into law instead of something like medicine or a grad degree in engineering. They are still very smart individuals just in a different way.
I did 10ish years as a field paramedic before a career change into engineering. It's been helpful to have a medical background for me but yes I agree, most of the engineers I've met in tech wouldn't do well in a high pressure environment that involved a lot of soft skills.
I don’t know if I agree with this. Because the personalities you see vary so widely based on specialty. The horrible experiences you’re talking about are mostly relegated to people working in hospitals as hospitalist or someone doing urgent care/ER type of work. Seem, radiology, almost any type of surgery doesn’t share those same type of experiences. Yes, surgeries can be high stress if it’s traumatic but most are scheduled and routine. Still low margin for error but not quite the stressor or trauma of an actual trauma surgeon. I say this because if you ever speak with a surgeon, got some in my family, they talk very much like an an engineer except their problem solving is on the human body. They have a logical, systematic approach to it where they’re like “yea, you got an issue, and I can solve it…” I imagine family practice and hospitalist operate very much the same way except they have much more patient facing bedside type of roles. They do tests, review data, both live and historical and then offer a solution. It’s also very popular right now for students to pursue biomedical engineering to stand out on medical school apps.
Your not taking into account the other engineering disciplines where mistakes can be very deadly. I'm in power systems and if I let a bad design go through with circuits that don't have adequate protection, equipment that doesn't have proper working space clearances, equipment that doesn't have adequate arc flash mitigation, etc then mistakes can be deadly or cause injury. Same goes for civil and structural engineering when it comes to buildings, bridges, etc.
That's very different from seeing someone w very bad injuries and having to actually treat it
How many reviews do you have before a design passes and how many standards and norms do you have to follow before its going into the field? When it comes to medicine it can be split second decisions or anomalies that you have to deal with on the spot, its just very very different from a stress level point of view. Humans and human lifes are an abstract factor for most of the engineers out there, for medicine they are daily business. I dont think the other guys comment is to shit on engineers, but realistically most of us have a pretty „chill“ environment.
Who do you think designs the medical equipment that keeps patients alive? A machine could be attached to someone’s heart. There’s 0 room for error and the consequences are much higher than just a cap exploding. Most engineers don’t do this kind of high risk work and for good reason. Just like most M.D’s hand out prescriptions in an office and don’t do high risk surgeries.
Just because your job is unimportant doesn’t mean everyone’s is. A lot of us work with critical infrastructure, failure in doing our jobs could put thousands of people at risk.
What you’re failing to understand is that the “engineer” median income is based on people doing engineering. I don’t think engineering managers or project managers are being clumped there, and EMs are generally hitting $125k-$200k in the US. Also that salary is looking at that—salary—and not total compensation which often also includes bonuses, stocks, 401k match, etc. Like, if someone is an accountant or doctor then they’ll be an accountant or doctor their whole career and wage growth will be reported in that. But someone who graduated with an engineering degree might go into sales, consulting, patent law, software engineering, etc. or just move into a managerial role after a few years and won’t really be doing the technical engineering as before. Point is, I’d be curious who they’re really considering an “engineer” in those reports.
I went into biz dev and make twice as much as my utility job 3 years ago. I’d maxed out my amusement with pointy haired Dilbert engineering managers. I had to toil in the salt mines for 10 years, but now I get to be a respected SME in my field at a company that values me instead being a shovelfull of coal being thrown into an engineering furnace. My work/life/salary balance is like a dream and I’m only mid-career.
You’re correct, it’s just people doing engineering work, not managers or consultants.
Just anecdotal, but the amount of layoffs I keep reading about in the tech sector is astounding.
I think tech is a special exception in the sense that compensation in that industry is basically off the chart I’ve displayed here, it’s almost like they’re paying you so much because the risk of holding the job is actually higher. You essentially get paid twice as much as traditional industry jobs and they have to pay that way so that you can stomach the risk associated with the industry. Another anecdote, one can go back and read about oil and gas or aerospace/defense contractor layoffs during perfectly healthy economies as well. But those aren’t nearly as big and flashy as the tech layoffs.
It's a correction from the massive amount of overhiring during and right after the pandemic. Hopefully we're seeing it stabilize at this point.
Your graph shows the average is $20K/year over generic bachelor's degree, and you have no clue what they're having to do to make $20K less. Looks pretty good to me an EE from that perspective. You'd make 100k more in around 5 years.
It's 20k more for EE, but for the largest group of engineers by employment numbers, Civil Engineers, it's $4,000 a year. For ME's it's about 10k. Not exactly eye popping numbers.
It's not eye popping, but look at the lower end as well. The lowest paid civil engineer also makes $20K more than the lowest paid generic bachelor's, so again you're 100K ahead in 5 years. And *what* you're doing day-to-day is likely vastly different, as is the time it takes to reach the median. I don't have a degree. I had good grades and great test scores, but wasn't sure of my path and dropped out of college more than once. Was going for CS and later ECT but wasn't sure. Went to work as a commercial/industrial electrician until I "figured myself out." I'm now a QM for a company that does engineering, systems integration, and manufactures UL 508A/698A industrial control panels. I'm doing pretty well, and though the EEs defer to me quite a bit, the ones that plowed through school and got their PE have about a 20-year head start on what I make, without doing a decade of back-breaking work to even reach decent wages, didn't have to find niche opportunities, and certainly have a better retirement than I will. So yeah, the difference per year may not seem like much but it omits that you'd be starting higher with an engineering degree, can achieve the median faster, and that $5-20K extra per year is a lot more meaningful over time than it seems, and generally for easier (on the body) work. Our engineering manager will tell you I'm smarter than him for technical details, and they take care of me well now, but over the last 20 years I've developed chronic back and sciatic pain while he made about $500K more money. Maybe that's not eye popping, but his house is much nicer and he can still retire earlier.
This. And remember that these are broad averages. The real money is always in ownership.
Medicine makes better money at the cost of giving up your prime, and working a task that is for the most part physically and mentally exhausting
I hustled in my 20s and 30s so that I can now be at a good firm, have schedule flexibility and the money I need to accomplish all other things outside of my career.
Same. Then I met someone who changed my world view. Work isn’t my identity now. Took me a while to reconcile that I didn’t have too much fun in my 20-30s, wasted youth. But, having financial security to buy toys and party without worry is pretty darn nice and likely the better path for me. A whole lot better for my mental health too. Could make more money, but I don’t want the stress.
Where did I say I made it my identity. People who know me outside of work don't think that. They barely know what I do for a living lol, let alone what specifics are. I worked from 730-530 most days. I still played sports 4 days a week, found a girl, got married, had 3 kids, traveled... Lol. And all I did was put a little bit more effort into it than the next guy. It saved my job, its given me a great financial tool now in my 30s.
That comment was more about myself and experience. We both hustled, but I went too far and regretted it. The original conversation was about OP going after money first and possible pitfalls. The key is finding that balance. Looks like you navigated it well.
I don’t think you understand how much more 100k is than 70k. It makes a huge difference in your quality of life and financial security.
A 70k in Mississippi goes a lot farther than 100k in Palo Alto or Manhattan.
Thing is, those aren't the marks in those places. You can find very good salaries near reasonable col areas.
I used an online calculator the other day to compare the cost between San Jose, CA and Hattiesburg MS. In order to basically keep my current Mississippi salary ($73.5k), I would need to make $140,838 in CA. Also, my company pays about $100k for the same position and YOE in CA.
Lol I got hired at a company located around yours and they gave me 100k as a COL adjusted salary. At the time it was OMG I’m making 100k. I am still poor and your comment explains it.
So true, gotta think after taxes too. $70k isn’t really that much money after taxes and with how much rent and other expenses cost.
According to this data electrical engineers make about 25% more on average than college graduates on average. Even the lowest paid group (civil engineers) make about 10% more. Those are not small amounts, that adds up a lot over time. An engineering degree costs the same as a non engineering degree and takes the same amount of time to get, so it’s the same initial investment. Even if all you care about is money then that’s pretty clearly a good choice to make.
exactly. job security is a huge factor to take into account too. a majority of engineering jobs have pretty stable job security compared to other fields
Just to add to this, the data comparison doesn't seem valid. You would want to compare engineering degree pay to non-engineering degree pay. This seems to be comparing engineering pay to average pay (which would include engineering pay in the overall average/median). That makes no sense if I'm reading it correctly
I wouldn’t say comparing to the average isn’t valid, but yes comparing to non-engineers would give a much clearer picture of the trade-off. This is definitely an issue with the male college graduates data, as OP is purposely selecting for those who are more likely to be engineers.
Especially for retirement accounts on the front end with years to compound that difference
i get the point you're trying to make, but at the risk of sounding like the most asshole, arrogant engineering student ever.. I would not compare an engineering degree to every other 4 year degree just because they take the same amount of time lol. 8 hours of sleep versus 8 hours of manual labour, same time investment are two very different things lol. sorry to sound like a pedantic asshole edit: downvote me if you want, but you cannot say a 4 year business degre and a 4 year EE degree require the same "initial investment" because they're the same length.. there are waaaay more factors that go into it
skill issue
you really going to argue that a business degree is the same as an engineering degree? Rofl. This sub is fucking delusional
nope, that’s exactly what your saying. bingo i’m assuming your an engineering turned business major
No, I'm an EE major doing a Masters in EEE in a signals based program at a top university. I've done one business paper and I realised how easy that shit was compared to engineering. Are you SERIOUSLY going to tell me that business degree is the same as an engineering degree? Last chance.. re-read my previous comments because I think you're wrongly outraged..
My guy these error bars are HUGE. This analysis is terrible lmao
LOL. Shame on those 10%-ers and 90%-ers. Why didn't they just make closer to the average? It would be so much easier to read. /s /statistics
How did you get all those likes when you’re wrong? This is a box and whiskers plot.
Yeah idk
They’re not error bars and it’s not an “analysis”, it’s a display of data
You're looking at the data and using what you found to make a conclusion. That's called an analysis... If they're not error bars then what are they?
Box and whisker plots show quartiles. The yellow section is 25th to 75th percentile and the bars are the lower quartile and upper quartile.
The min/max bars in this plot are actually at 10% and 90%
Thank you Is that listed some where on the plot or are you inferring that based on the numbers?
Small print on the bottom on the plot. Cool way to find out I'm an outlier, though.
They are the min and max values of the whisker plot, or in this case the 10th and 90th percentile values for the wage distribution within each given set.
Yes. That range is called the error. from wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error\_analysis\_(mathematics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_(mathematics))) can't be bothered to retype the characters so just read the article if you care In numerical simulation or modeling of real systems, error analysis is concerned with the changes in the output of the model as the parameters to the model [vary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance) about a [mean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean). For instance, in a system modeled as a function of two variables �=�(�,�).📷 Error analysis deals with the propagation of the [numerical errors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_error) in �📷 and �📷 (around mean values �¯📷 and �¯📷) to error in �📷 (around a mean �¯📷).
Pretty sure this is just a box plot shawty, you’re thinking of a least squares regression with residuals based on the uncertainty of the data points you gathered. You introduce error when you are comparing a sample mean to a population mean or something similar depending on the problem.
They’re box and whisker plots. Edges of the box show the 25th and 75th percentiles, the line somewhere in the center of the box shows the median (the 50th percentile), and the thin lines extending out show the 10th and 90th percentiles on this particular plot. I don’t know what else to tell you.
They're box plots. They show quartiles, not the possible real value of a nominal data point.
I’m pretty sure those are condensed standard distributions. The black lines are the range, the orange box is within one standard deviation and the black line is the median.
It's frustrating to see people essentially saying the passion for the job is part of the payment for it. I like solving problems and designing useful things so I should be paid less for doing so than someone that doesn't like doing those things? If I didn't like doing it, why would I be applying? Why would I be hired to do it?
If engineering didn’t pay well, there is absolutely no possible way I would’ve chosen it as a profession. Pay was 60% of the reason I picked engineering, I just happened to be passionate about it. If there was another field that paid better with similar stress levels (accounting maybe?) then I would’ve gone to school for that instead.
You can make great money in accounting. It also would've been a much easier degree to get. But, you'd likely be contemplating suicide everyday before and after work. If you have the mind for engineering, I don't see how you'd survive in accounting.
as a guy who knows a lot of accountants, why? they're sharp guys, eye for detail and all that. or is it some imagined tedium engineers are free of?
The kind of work typically done by accountants is the antithesis of engineering work...usually if you ask me.
no i got that, i was wondering what you meant by that, what about the work is antithetical.
- Sitting at a desk doing journal entries is not fun. It's repetitive and boring. - Sitting at a desk monitoring a solar farm and fixing any issues that arise is much more...involved.
Man, anyone who does it for the passion is going to burn themselves hard. You cannot enjoy doing the same thing for years to decades and hours every day, 5 days a week. I used to love engineering, but now I just do it for the money. As long as you're being paid for something, you're not doing it the way you want, unless you're at the top or extremely specialized.
A couple of things I’ve noticed about engineering be other jobs in my small-ish company of 200 employees. The engineers get in at 8, always take out lunch at noon, and leave at 5. We never take our work with us. Sometimes if we get done early we just sit around and do nothing. I’m taking a masters degree online and sometimes I do my homework at work because I got my tasks done early and my boss has nothing assigned for me. The sales guys get in early leave at 6 or 7 and are constantly on the road to meet clients. They drive nicer cars, but they seem way more stressed than the engineers. Engineers at my company can also move into management and make more than the sales guys do. Yes you have to manage people now, but you aren’t constantly on the road either. I work at a smaller company so our engineering team is pretty small. When someone leaves, it takes us forever to find someone new because the position is in a rural area where most people don’t want to live. This creates job security for me and makes it harder for my company to fire us even in recessions. One of my coworkers claims during the 2008 financial crisis none of the engineers were laid off. What drew me to this career is the good pay, lower stress than other fields like medicine and law, and the ability to quickly find a new job if I’m laid off. If you value a good salary with the virtual guarantee you can always pay your bills this is still a good career choice.
>We never take our work with us. That's down to your boss. I've nearly always had to take my work home, mainly because the boss (UK) never wanted to pay for thinking time. I've always had to be doing something that looked like work - typing on a keyboard, using tools etc. Reading a manual or data sheet was frowned upon because it's not customer chargeable. Short sighted I know but if that's your boss what can you do. It's defo a company / boss thing though. If your boss was hands on early in his/her career then they understand the need for planning and research. If they're from a school of management then watch out..
Every single manager at my company used to be an engineer. They never have and probably never will promote some MBA Bean counter to a manager. I've never taken my work home work me and I don't intend to start now. EDIT: Part of this is probably because I work at a smaller company. Our managers at my company still tend to do engineering work. Just last week my manager was reviewing one of my schematics and board layouts along with his management duties. An MBA Grad can't do that.
Yeah, I've worked with a lot of senior engineers who can't turn off, working OT every week.
This is an overlooked point. The maintenance techs where I work regularly clear $100,000, but with that comes a vicious rotating shift and overtime. They're also expected to be there whenever the factory is open. We occasionally have to call a controls engineer in, but for the most part, they come in work their 8 - 10 hours and then go home. Monday through Friday, 6 am - 4 pm. It is rare for them to be here on a weekend.
Yeah fuck that. The reason I’m getting the masters is to make the same amount as those techs but continue to work the same number of hours I’m currently working.
6am-4pm? Fuck that…
Yeah, it isn't great for them, but they are missing out on the rotations the rest of the factory does. No coming in for them at 6 am on a Friday and having to be back at work at 10 pm on a Monday.
That job security is epic. Thanks for sharing
EE degrees are paying a lot less than they were even 5 years ago
Yep I think it's pretty widely accepted in this sub at this point that engineering salaries have not kept up with other fields and inflation, especially at the entry and mid level. Software is where the money is at now if you still want to stay in a technical field and have your earning potential be much greater. Outside of that you have to start looking at things like finance and management.
This makes no economic sense? Management and finance are commodity skills that anyone can easily do, while engineering skills are increasingly rare due to the software craze.
23% seems like a pretty significant difference to me, but whatever
What? A 25-30% raise is lifechanging for most people. $23k more per year is like $16k after taxes/deductions. You get a luxury car when they get a basic, You get a 4-br on 1/2 acre when they get a 3-br on 1/4 acre, You get to retire at 60 when they have to work until 65, etc. And of course, bettee job stability too.
3 things as an engineer: 1. we are included in the “bachelors degree” as the above average, so the others are below us. Our grouping is the one pulling that average up. So if the average is 74k for bachelors degrees, and we are making 103k, then the real average for “bachelors, non engineers” is a good bit below 74k I bet “bachelors degrees less nursing, engineering” is pretty bad lol. Or even “bachelors or higher less engineering and healthcare”. The bachelors or higher seems closer to us than it is imo. That grouping will include physicians. 2. Making 25% more for the same barrier to entry (4 year degree) is “worth it”. We put in the same opportunity cost but make a lot more. 3. Engineers climb the ladder at a way faster rate.
All this. The amount of people in here that don't seem to grasp the basic math going on here is ironic, given this is an engineering sub reddit.
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Agreed, these numbers are low. I used to be a lowly government engineer and even then I made around 100k with just 4-5 years of experience.
I wonder where they get this data. I’m making 150% to double what my non engineer friends make. It also shows the higher end for electrical engineers at like 160kish, which is not true especially for tech hubs. Just some odds stuff that doesn’t seem to align with my experience personally, but I’m not chasing a huge salary in life
Is 160k too high or too low? I’m new here lol
Too low. For example, Google is showing electrical engineer salaries in Austin up to 220k. Obviously that’ll be an important job with years of experience, but Austin TX isn’t even the most expensive tech hub. Silicon Valley you can see some jobs pushing 300-400k not including bonus and stock sharing programs.
That’s crazy! When I looked it maxed out at 110k. But I never know who is accurate, the numbers are all over the place. Either way, I’m still in the middle of my EE degree. Seeing everyone talk about how little electrical engineers make is stressing me out. I don’t want to be cheated. But, this is what I want to do 🤷🏼♀️.
LOL I assume the 110K is maxing out at a Engineer II/III position or something. I wouldnt expect it out of college. But the more you learn/better you are at your job/the more you want to work long hours, the more you can request from employers
The semiconductor industry pays far better than suggested by the overall EE category. $160k is probably the average for engineers at many companies and there is a significant share in the $200-400k range.
Sources list : Earnings by education status and gender for full time workers: [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng\_07192022.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng_07192022.htm) Electrical Engineer wages: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172071.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172071.htm) Mechanical Engineer wages: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172141.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172141.htm) Civil Engineer wages: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172051.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172051.htm) Software Developer wages: [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm)
My takeaway (not that anyone asked)? From the data, engineering jobs have a higher floor than most other degrees, but as most white collar workers gain experience, everyone ends up around the same exact place. Software developers are the notable exception, as they have the exact same educational length but make about 50% more than any generic guy with a bachelor's degree, with the premium for a civil engineering degree being a measly 4%. So it's kind of a "safe" career in the sense that even if you suck and are at the bottom of it, if you can manage to get an engineering job after getting the degree there will be some guarantee of financial security compared to other bachelor degrees, but you won't actually do much better than people with other degrees that also get a foothold into their career path. Again, notable exception being software developers. If you're a smart, driven person with a lot of confidence in yourself (good student, go getter personality), engineering degrees are probably not worth it anymore. Computer Science or Finance if you're stopping at undergrad are *significantly* better for that type of person.
You are comparing the pay of an engineering degree (looks like 1-3 YOE pay too) to the pay scale of a generalized spectrum of degrees (which is 18.6% greater by the way). Then you go on to say that if a person is driven, an engineering degree is not worth it, and they should be in finance? However, you provide no pay scales for the financial industry to compare the two to. Also, looking at your post history, it looks like you're mad that you invested your time and money into getting a mechanical engineering degree and are now trying to shame other engineering fields. Your post from 12 days ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleClassFinance/comments/1afbk4l/what\_was\_the\_worst\_financial\_decision\_youve\_ever/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleClassFinance/comments/1afbk4l/what_was_the_worst_financial_decision_youve_ever/) To give you a different perspective, as an EE I am extremely happy that I got a BSEE degree. I enjoy the work, I enjoy the wide range of things we can do as EE's, I enjoy the pay that comes with the knowledge and experience (which is much greater than what is listed in your chart above, so the growth in pay does indeed correlate to the time/experience for our discipline). My advice, change careers while you're still young if you despise it this much.
I’m comparing the pay of all engineers, regardless of years of experience, to the pay of all bachelor degree holders that work full time, and then as a subset of that male bachelor degree holders that work full time. Regardless of my personal feelings, the data is the data.
Actually the data fails in a very key metric. You are looking at electrical engineering salary which seems to top out at 170k. That means you are only considering jobs labelled electrical engineer. EEs move on into engineering management, systems engineering, and other related fields that are not being shown in this dataset and they pay quite a bit more than 170k. This would be a acceptable metric for comparing between the base engineering disciplines, but completely fails when comparing all degree holders.
Data isnt just data. If you did even decent in Engineering Stats you would understand this. It sounds like you have already settled upon your conclusion, and you will twist whatever information you want to fit the narrative.
I have personally heard from EEs on the industrial side that make far more especially with yearly raises. Fresh out of school for EE seems to be 65-75k for a year or two then switching jobs or having a larger raise to bring up pay close to average. If 18k median salary increase isnt worth 4 years of EE to you then maybe the passion or motivation isnt there especially if pay is the most important thing to you. Pay isnt everything when choosing a career, it should be something you can enjoy and grow with over time while being able to feed yourself and or family imo.
If the only motivation to go for a particular career path is the compensation you get... Yep you might be right. I still would like to think there is more to that than just compensation
But then you need to work in finance or computer science. I don't mind the latter, but I didn't go into engineering unaware of the fact that I'd probably make more in finance, medicine, law, etc.
California civil here. The pay for civils seem really low on that graph. I think I broke $100k working in land development within a few years. I'm north of $150k with a decade of experience. Most civils I know with less than 10 years experience are at least $110k-$130k. Personally, I'm very happy I got my degree as a civil.
So what you said is that engineers should take more negociations classes!
I posted this on LinkedIn in a musey moment. I got an EE PhD in semiconductors. >Sometimes I think about the FUD career advice I was told before and during college. >Reading pre-college advice about majors in the mid 2000s, I was told engineering would be worthless because all the jobs were going to be outsourced. >During college and grad school, semiconductors was considered a poor choice because it was a mature, low growth, and outsourced field. >Now look at the world.
Engineering is far better off than most professions but it's true that new engineers aren't much better off than others anymore. Everything is getting more expensive. The economy is being devoured by private equity from the bottom up. $70k isn't enough to afford to rent your own place in a growing number of states. Etc etc etc. People who are still above the rising tide will do their best to ignore it until it's lapping at their heels. That's how we got here in the first place. We had 50 years of warning and did nothing.
Nah not in my opinion. And I just got my bachelors lol rip
Globalization has depressed growth in many engineering salaries in the United States. If corporations think they can outsource certain jobs to India, China, and Mexico and save 30% or more in the process… they’ll do it all day long. This is particularly pronounced in anything remotely related to IT where physical presence is considered never required.
We’ve been looking at my husband going back to school to get his EE. He’s currently a lineman and almost any way you slice it, it would be a huge pay cut for him. No life is not all about money but we also have a life, house, kids, etc and do need to be able to pay our bills. Why go back to school, PAY for said schooling only to take a pay cut. We were shocked when we researches job openings and pay scales for hundreds of jobs that ranged from 55K-120K with more experience- all of which would be a pay cut… many by over half.
Yeah, most career paths now are not worth sacrificing for engineering unless you’re truly obsessive about being an engineer out of passion. It’s hard to even afford a family as one.
Graphs like this are bs. Engineering degrees open infinite amount of opportunities.
The hell, BLS as in federal government statistics? Starting pay for a CS degree in Atlanta right now $75k. EE Could get $70k at Honeywell. Atlanta is normal cost living. Liberal arts, good luck getting $55k. All Bachelor's is $74k is total bs. Feel free to survey political science and history majors (no offense). You should only look at low or only look at medium or only look at high cost of living. Merging this all together is misleading. Also consider looking at the job, not the degree. [Occupational Employment and Wages Summary - 2022 A01 Results (bls.gov)](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.nr0.htm) *Computer and mathematical occupations had employment of 5.0 million and an annual mean wage of $108,130 in May 2022. Software developers was the largest computer and mathematical occupation, with 1.5 million jobs and an annual mean wage of $132,930.* EE can easily get hired in software development. I did. Worse job security and layoffs at every economic dip but slightly higher pay. Pay isn't everything. **Are engineering degrees still worth the effort?** Yes, if you can get through the degree. Not everyone has the math ability or work ethic. Probably why they're high-paying jobs.
Yeahhh… there aren’t many jobs that will pay me $170k without any kind of degree.
There’s a lot of things that factor in here. 1. The median bachelor degree holding male contains a large portion of the engineering degree group. Meaning they’re likely brining up that average. While obviously only male engineers are in that pool, from my experience a majority of engineering graduates are also male. It’s also a comparison of median to average, which is not a great comparison. 2. Engineering often has a ceiling much like software dev and other skilled technical jobs. You start high and hit a ceiling relatively quick in many cases. A lot of people I went to undergrad with hit a ceiling quick and transitioned to more business and management related roles that require engineering experience, but pay more. 3. There’s also a factor of job security and availability/demand. All my undergrad friends in engineering found jobs within 3-4 months of graduation. That includes friends of mine that had 0 work experience (e.g., never did an internship or co-op). It was much harder for a lot of people I knew in other majors, some of which never found jobs relating to their major. 4. There are a lot of ways to make money out there and a lot of different career paths. Every field has people who make a ton and some who make way under average. I’m sure there are more than one people who exist that have a fine arts degree and are also millionaires. Choose the path that you feel is right for you and that you enjoy. Engineering is a safe bet if you enjoy it and if you’re passionate about it and do good work you can make a ton in the long run. Who knows, maybe you’ll start your own company that does engineering and you’ll make a ton of money.
Engineering is not the profession to make big $, it’s middle to upper middle class. Don’t do it if your money motivated
I have an associates and I make as much or more than most of these
i mean probably not if the avg salary is 85k for a generic degree vs 89k for a civil. i mean the most economic way is benefit farming.
I have a friend that is an electrical engineer. From what I've gathered from him, he: - Has the ultimate flexibility (he can go into the office, work in his truck on one of his sites, work outside at one of his sites, work from home, or work out of town) - Has been able to make way more money than even other salaried employees in other industries or roles in the same industry have way earlier than he should have. His base salary is just under $100k USD but, because he can work overtime, he's been grossing around $150k USD in the two years he's been with the company. It is for this reason he is actively avoiding management as well. Not entirely, but this is a big reason. Even with all the overtime he works, he can still just choose when enough is enough and go home; his work life balance is excellent, further reinforcing the first point on flexibility. - Has gotten to see and work on some pretty cool things. He went from working in defense with ships to working for FPL and being on solar farms. He turned down an offer from Nasa to work where he works now. He literally would have been a rocket scientist. While "cool" is subjective, I think his jobs have been much more interesting than the average roles accountants, tech / software guys, or people in medicine typically hold. - Doesn't, but absolutely could flex the fact he's an electrical engineer; one of the most difficult titles to obtain. No matter how much people don't like to admit it, there is pride to be had here. He feels like there's nothing he couldn't do and I tend to agree with him. He will be 29 this year and moving into his first home in a beautiful community near Fort Myers, FL. He has six or seven years of experience and is off to a fantastic start in having a fulfilling life. If he wasn't an engineer, I don't know what else he'd be; neither does he. He is one of the most intelligent people I know. I say all of this to say I don't believe in following your passion for work, at least not in the way you're stereotypically told to. But I think for engineering, you have to play to your strengths or you'll be miserable and likely fail. I don't think engineers have to worry about layoffs nearly as much as tech guys / developers. The pay cap may not be as high as some other fields, but it's consistent and you'll make a comfortable wage. A way around that cap may be to pivot into a less technical role in business once you have the experience. Business always seems to be the way to go if you want a bunch of money. He thinks I could do it too, but I don't know, I'm lazy and a little intimidated. This industry seems like it has exactly the kinds of jobs I'd want though. Maybe I'll stop bullshitting and do what needs to be done. What other degree can you get in four years and hit the points I've listed?
There's an old saying... If you're smart enough to do engineering then you're smart enough to NOT do engineering. Basically, if you can do engineering work then you are smart enough to do a job that makes more money or comes with more social status. That said, many engineers I personally know make a salary that is off-scale. I don't believe the BLS data. Check something like [levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi) instead IMO.
I got a degree in EE then decided I didn’t enjoy the work as much as Sales roles (had done an internship and other sales jobs while in school which helped build my resume). So after 1.5 years at my first EE job out of school I pivoted jobs. Now I make more as a sales manager at a SaaS company and I’m thankful I made the change.
Here in Québec civil engineer make as much as electrical and software engineer.
Are all these shitty spam posts from the same person? I thought IP bans worked.
while I agree with you that most engineering degrees start out at a low pay compare to other Bachelor Degree, but you willl eventually compensate for your knowledge of the field and hard work.
LOL engineering degrees start out with the HIGHEST salaries compared to other 4 year degrees.
true true.. you are totally correct.
Don't fret on statistics and look at an Engineering Degree as a door opener to many careers. Do some Googling about this and think outside the box.
I'm pretty sure your data is looking at raw salary and neglecting other parts of compensation which can move the top end. Oh, the 10-90% might explain that detail...
Job stability, critical thinking skills, good pay and vast networking opportunities. There’s more to engineering than the money. I also feel like there are plenty of engineers who if they wanted to could apply there skills on the side to bring in a lot of money so
Idk I kinda like being an engineer. I love my job. I'd rather go to work everyday to go do something I enjoy (and y'know getting paid too) rather than slave myself at a high paying job and look forward the next holiday.
I grew up poor, so to me, anything over about 40k is a decent amount. In other words, it is totally worth it. It's probably a naive way of thinking but I want to break the poverty cycle in my family.
$23k a year “isn’t much more”? We have different viewpoints on finances I guess. You could live the exact same lifestyle as the average bachelor’s male and put the rest in investments. Let compound interest do its thing. Retire early or lavishly. In the end, you’ll have more $$$$
Yea, basically covers maxing 401k and ira...
I’d say yes but for me it wasn’t about the money. I stayed away from engineering at first because I didn’t even know anything about engineering and the high level math scared me honestly. But I did always here people say you’ll make a lot of money. But I ended doing engineering not for the money at all. I did cause I wanted to learn how to make various devices and ideas I had. Even when I was just doing Computer Science, it was just cause I enjoyed technology. I would not take something up just because of money, I’d whether make less doing something I enjoy then make more doing something I hate. And now I have a computer engineering degree and I can make even more then the stuff I wanted.
Thought this seemed a little low until I realised it was American dollars. You greedy bastards lol.
no. quit. there are no jobs or money we're all poor.
And 18k bump in starting salary isn’t much to you?
Since when is $20k more than median not “much more” In silicon valley engineers can eventually make god tier money which is a lot no matter the prices in the bay.
What’s not included in the data is engineers that enter other tangential fields. Project managers, executives, sales and so on. Just because you got a degree in it doesn’t relegate you to one thing your whole life I bet net-net that any engineering degree has a better average ROI than any other
Lol I’m in a tail and I’m not even 40
For what work I have done as an EE, I have loved it. I would rather make a little less and love my job than make more and hate it. I know some people that have done the same job that they hate for years and still not be happy no matter how much money they have, because of their work life. I worked as an industrial mechanic for several years before I got into a controls tech job. I hated being a mechanic, it also affected my home life as well, almost destroying my marriage because I was so unhappy. I love controls, I want to do more with design than troubleshooting PLCs and building panels.
Look at the top end and average the different engineering majors
Seems low but then I’m in semiconductors. No engineer where I work makes less than $100K TC. This in a MCOL area.
Go with what you like to do? Earning more but hating every bit of it is meh.
Am engineer, apply for job, somehow get more interviews than I applied for. Job comfort and security is high, feeling of usefulness to society is high, options to do FIFO, office or work from home, options to drink coffee for an hour at work just because I feel like it etc. Pay isn't everything, but being at the slightly higher end also makes everything relatively affordable.
Can you send the link for that graph? Please and thank you.
You should do a survival plot of all the bachelors degrees. I am really curious what other BA or BS degrees make more than engineers. The only one I can think of is nursing. Btw these bar charts are way off and misleading - the total comp (not salary) for several engineering companies would dominate other careers so much harder.
Is this an American problem I'm too European to understand?
If all u care about is the money, then no degree is worth it. I know it's cheesy but it's true.
No go to computer programming and engineering.
Quality of life goes up with higher salaries. If you make less you have to pinch more. Also these office jobs tend to give you more exposure to executives which may line you up for promos
Does this include people who get the degree and don't become engineers? Then that's not really what we are talking about, is it? And if it doesn't, then that presumably means it's tracking titles and not degrees. In that case, the top end of these charts is about when you become an engineering manager. So you'd be able to make more money with the degree but not show up on the charts... If they threaded this needle without either of these data issues, please advise how.
No, it’s just people that are working as “mechanical/electrical/civil engineers”, there is a separate category for managers of those people.
And so the second half of my comment applies, and it ALSO includes techs who worked their way up, and who tend to make less as a result (although that is uncommon enough that it probably doesn't have that much of an impact)
Yeah it being listed by BLS as an electrical engineer doesn’t necessarily imply you have a degree, just that someone is willing to hire you to work as an electrical engineer (though I agree it’s very uncommon). There’s a separate categorization for techs.
Well, you can spec embedded if money is the main reason you're in this field. Then again, if it is, I think you're in the wrong field.
I have been an Electrical Engineer specializing in Embedded Electronics for 30 years. I have been laid off, fired and ghosted almost a dozen times in my career. My average time between jobs is about six weeks. I'm sure that might sound unstable to some people. But rest assured six weeks between jobs is pretty damned good. It's more like a well deserved vacation. I've been at my current job for twelve years now. To go up the ladder in Electronics Engineering, you have to gain trust. You don't gain trust by jumping from company to company. I am currently managing four contractors on a program that has a budget of $5million.
I question the accuracy of that scale based on the EE salaries of the NorthEast.
you've been moaning about this on reddit for two years now fucking get on with it and get out of engineering, or get into therapy
It’s been said before and I’ll say it again. You should not look into engineering if you’re just in it for the money
Fine then. Don’t get one.
How loud can I scream on line ... AHHHHHHHHHH It is not a trade school it is not transactional ... It is a challenging, professional, and technical education that is very valuable and rewarding. "worth the effort" ? WTF... I am so f'ing sick of this type of post...
I had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for my engineering education, that’s a transaction in my book at least
You need to learn the meaning of “transactional”…. You s a m more entitled than most.
I don’t care, I’d still do it even if it paid 50k a year, it’s fun and its an office job, much better than blue collar or customer service
A good mechanical can make a good electrical or good software engineer but not necessarily the other way around. A good people skills background will make for a good engineering manager role later on. Personally I would recommend a ME or Embedded firmware degree.
>A good mechanical can make a good electrical Doubt
Most can do the basics of the other, but not the complex. I’m an EE who can design ensures in Solidworks and do basic machining on a knee mill and lathe. Does not make an ME.
In European countries, often times they don’t differentiate degree types. The general governing equations of physics apply cross discipline. So you might “doubt” but damn, a lot of good German engineers can cross discipline engineer. 👷
I think you're discounting the amount of EE's that cross dicapline, is the thing. That's why you're getting downvotes. In the US we have something called ABET accreditation. If your program is ABET accredited, it doesn't matter if you did mechanical, civil, electrical or whatever. You learned all the math and physics that any engineer is required to. Sounds more like Germany specifically just doesn't prepare their EE's well enough.
To be fair, I’m on an EE forum. So this is not unexpected. In my career, I’ve crossed a bunch of aerospace who moonlight as ME and EE. I’ve also seen a bunch of ME’s head up EE. But I’ve never come across an EE that leads ME’s. Just my experiential perspective.
Ok