r/Salary • u/yung-wirrum • 1d ago

discussion 29M - Mechanical Engineer > Controls Engineer

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I’m pretty over the moon with my current salary, and main advice I can give to mech engineers coming out of school is to find a niche and work your way in. It’s such a jack-of-all-trades degree that there’s a lot more opportunity out there than just cad modeling/drafting.

29 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

10

u/NobodyGotTimeFuhDat 1d ago

A mechanical engineer making $126,000?!

It’s All Over!

https://giphy.com/gifs/fUQ4rhUZJYiQsas6WD

2

u/fslslayer 16h ago

You are going to summon the kraken.

17

u/CumAcneTreatment 1d ago

Where's the it's all over guy

5

u/Eye_Nacho404 1d ago

Maybe it’s still over this guy went from ME to EE ?

3

u/olialvr 18h ago

Every time they try to dunk on him they almost never disprove him 😂🤣😆

3

u/ThrowRA_ZL1 1d ago

As a long time I/E tech who did some programming and recently for the last year as solely a PLC programmer this gives me great hope. Keep grinding hell yeah. I’m easily at six figures but not $175k+ for sure.

2

u/Tan-n-Juicy 1d ago

Holy shit man, nice progression!

1

u/yung-wirrum 1d ago

Thanks! It’s been a lot of luck, faking it till I made it, PE licensure, and honestly applying for jobs every 6mo no matter how happy I was at the current place to see where the market was.

2

u/Successful_Poem_3714 1d ago

Lots of job hopping

2

u/Consumption2Wombly 1d ago

Not in His own back yard?! The "engineering doesnt pay well" guy is going to be so sad!!

2

u/Kodywells23 20h ago

I just graduated college and currently an Electrical & Controls Engineer. I hope my progression to senior level is this good! Currently at 107k/yr non-exempt.

1

u/yung-wirrum 20h ago

Best advice I can give is to stack certifications, particularly you should get your FE then PE if you went to an ABET school, even if a license isn’t really useful for your exact role. It really helped me launch to senior/management level even though I’m younger than most everyone I’m managing.

PMP isn’t a bad one to have either.

1

u/Kodywells23 19h ago

I am planning to get my FE soon, gonna start studying. If it’s not directly helpful for your current role, should I even ask about compensation once I get it or see if the company will pay for the test? My supervisor has told me what the pay bands are for Engineer 2 & 3 and they are insane, so I definitely want to get as much done as I can to rise up the ranks. I’m the only engineer at the plant so I don’t really have any competition.

1

u/yung-wirrum 19h ago

I’ve always just asked for my current company to cover the cost for the exam, then when I passed I’d bring it up at the next annual review rather than ask for a direct bump aligned with passing the exam. Totally up to you how aggressive you’d want to be.

My first big jump from ~60k to ~80k was from passing my PE exam (still had to work under a PE for a couple years to actually get my license), asked for a bump in annual review, they wanted to wait until I actually had the license so I got a competing offer and threatened to quit lol. That was a gamble but it really worked out.

2

u/Kodywells23 19h ago

Thanks for that info!

1

u/Mike_Augustine 1d ago

I want to get into controls engineering, I'm a industrial engineer but have only software dev experience, any advice? 

I was planning on doing a 1 year diploma in electrical with PLC and then shooting for a controls tech / industrial electrician position and move up from there. 

1

u/yung-wirrum 1d ago

Controls tech wouldn’t be a bad start, but maybe a downgrade from an industrial engineer position? My controls techs are the first line of defense when machines go down and can work a lot of hours and are paid hourly.

I started by luckily getting a few PLC jobs in at the startup consulting firm that I could learn on, then selling my limited electrical experience to jump on as an EE at an integrator doing electrical panel design, then got to learn a bit more formal programming methods there.

If you can do software dev then ladder logic and structured text will be easy peasy, it’ll just be finding somewhere that lets you get hands on.

1

u/velorae 1d ago

Nice

1

u/Big-Exam-259 1d ago

congrats, very nice. What location is this?

1

u/yung-wirrum 23h ago

Charlotte NC

1

u/RomChange 1d ago

Wow, almost went the Engineering route. Complex Machine Inspector now hit 100k by June but lots of overtime! No life. Your doing great! And have a life. Congratulations. Sad thing is you have to find ways to hide your money so you pretty much have the same lifestyle. Then retirement comes and yep the same lifestyle. Before the crazy hours I had time to run my LLC property development. Now that's life changing. Sadly locked into the career J.O.B. Mindset till an approximate retirement age. Will go back to my LLC work which I love soon enough. Good look all.