Can you be rich as an engineer?

[Anonymous]

Engineer here. You might never get rich being an engineer. But there is such joy in having a job that conforms to the laws of physics. Even the biggest BS manager/sales person/lawyer can’t get you to make too much up.

[Anonymous]

The wealthy engineers I know are the ones who started at companies like Apple at the right time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:PAs, Pharmacists, Engineers are some of the highest earners at 30. By 50 they are earning peanuts next to their business major friends

Pretty much unless the engineer goes to management and then it's a lot more stress.
I manage an engineering team. Many at 30+ are at $140k with 40 hrs a week tops and only technical work to worry about. And they've been making over 100 with just a bs or ms (a little more) for a while. So those that saved early are in a good spot. Not rich but comfortable.

This is what I aim for. The execs at my company work insane hours, and I don't want that. I work 40-50 hours a week and my life is comfortable. I have free time to pursue other hobbies, pretty much heaven upgrade from my parents' hellish low paying retail jobs.

+100

DCUM doesn't understand the concept of being ok with making 150k and working 40 hours a week and actually looking forward to stuff besides work but I wouldn't trade it for the world

Indeed. And if you have two of you making similar money and you are reasonably smart with savings, you can build a very big nest egg by your 50s. I also really enjoy what I do for work.

[Anonymous]

Most lawyers don't actually make that much money.
Lawyers at biglaw firms make a lot of money, that's true. But the vast majority of lawyers make the same as regular mortals.
Stop using biglaw salaries as if they were representative of the lawyer general population.
I know engineers at big tech companies that are making more than 500k. They are not in managerial positions.
This would be the fair biglaw comparison, not a lowly paid engineer at 150k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most lawyers don't actually make that much money.
Lawyers at biglaw firms make a lot of money, that's true. But the vast majority of lawyers make the same as regular mortals.
Stop using biglaw salaries as if they were representative of the lawyer general population.
I know engineers at big tech companies that are making more than 500k. They are not in managerial positions.
This would be the fair biglaw comparison, not a lowly paid engineer at 150k.

Would you say the median engineer makes more than the median lawyer? I doubt that.

[Anonymous]

Having worked in engineering, I went into it because I really liked the technical aspect of it. So I was a little puzzled as to the emphasis on STEM in education these days. It's not going to be a good fit for many students and if they are going into it for the money, this thread seems to indicate their efforts would be better served in another area.

[Anonymous]

My dad is an engineer. He started and owns his own company, and he is very rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad is an engineer. He started and owns his own company, and he is very rich.

Your dad is actually an engineer turned businessman. The money comes from being a businessman but the prep for that success was his engineering background.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:150k at 27 isn't high?

My DH was making that at 27 in finance. Now he makes around 750k in a super family friendly job (I.e. not Wall St. hours)

disgusting

your husband adds nothing of value to the world, but manages to leech 750k out of it

Who knows, maybe he prices options and keeps another 2008 crisis at bay...

wall st people are the ones who caused the 2008 crisis

I forgot that they were the ones that signed all of those papers thinking that $1200 per month was a reasonable mortgage for a $500,000 house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Engineer here. You might never get rich being an engineer. But there is such joy in having a job that conforms to the laws of physics. Even the biggest BS manager/sales person/lawyer can’t get you to make too much up.

I used to think like this, but came to the realization that the value is not in the engineering, but in the idea that led to the engineering. In other words, the value of the original iPhone's touch screen isn't the engineering to realize the touchscreen itself, but the idea about the touchscreen and how it should function. You can call the people that come up with those ideas "BS manager", laugh at the sales guys, but there's a reason they make more money than you. I say this as someone with not one but two engineering degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:150k at 27 isn't high?

My DH was making that at 27 in finance. Now he makes around 750k in a super family friendly job (I.e. not Wall St. hours)

disgusting

your husband adds nothing of value to the world, but manages to leech 750k out of it

Who knows, maybe he prices options and keeps another 2008 crisis at bay...

wall st people are the ones who caused the 2008 crisis

I forgot that they were the ones that signed all of those papers thinking that $1200 per month was a reasonable mortgage for a $500,000 house.

Yeah, blame the poor shlubs who believed the mortgage broker sales pitch; but no, the crisis didn’t happen b/c of some bad mortgages, it was CDOs and synthetic CDOs, and some degree swaps and auction rate securities that caused the crisis.

A crashed mortgage market is garden variety recession; 2008 was about leverage and derivatives.

Read the ‘big short’

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineer here. You might never get rich being an engineer. But there is such joy in having a job that conforms to the laws of physics. Even the biggest BS manager/sales person/lawyer can’t get you to make too much up.

I used to think like this, but came to the realization that the value is not in the engineering, but in the idea that led to the engineering. In other words, the value of the original iPhone's touch screen isn't the engineering to realize the touchscreen itself, but the idea about the touchscreen and how it should function. You can call the people that come up with those ideas "BS manager", laugh at the sales guys, but there's a reason they make more money than you. I say this as someone with not one but two engineering degrees.

Uh, every engineer in the word would known a touch screen is better, and that resistive touch screens were horrible.

Engineer built the capacitive touch screen to address that idea, and Palm or Android were right on the cusp of deploying products when iPhone came out.

Marketing for iPhones is amazing; but it is also the stellar engineering which makes it stable and high performing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:150k at 27 is great, but they're likely going to be making only slightly higher 10 years later. Most of the senior-level developers I know make $175-200k.

Lawyers and doctors do a lot better later in their careers.

agreed...but an engineer only needs a 4-year degree....a big bang for the buck if you ask me...

That’s actually a BIG part of it. Lawyers and doctors go into MAJOR debt for their career; generally they come from well off families, so they know if they hit any bumps they won’t be destitute and in debt for hundreds of thousands.

Engineers tend to come from LMC backgrounds, and the thought of taking in that much debt is stupefying (the loans for MBA/Law/Med school DWARF the value and mortgage of the houses they grew up in). It’s a hellscape nightmare level of debt, and a risk they can’t stomach with no backup plan.

Cite?

This is documented in many papers.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college-major-rich-families-liberal-arts/397439/

It's lower than English, but in no way is that figure LMC.

LMC kids typically do not get four year degrees.

I am defining the lower middle-class here as folks who would have to move back in with their parents or go on public assistance if things went bad, and moving back in with your parents means moving into a depressed job market with little opportunity.

Basically anyone who is a student that would exceed the value of their parents house. That’s pretty much representative

Most engineering students today come from UMC backgrounds (either in the USA or overseas) and their parents have college degrees.

The impression that engineering is for LMC kids is outdated and based in the fact that back in the post-WWII and post-Vietnam era, it was a popular major for ex-military who were going back to school on the GI bill. This is particularly true since they may have had some exposure to engineering projects in the military and there were many engineering jobs in the Cold War-era defense industry where their military service might have been viewed as a plus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:150k at 27 is great, but they're likely going to be making only slightly higher 10 years later. Most of the senior-level developers I know make $175-200k.

Lawyers and doctors do a lot better later in their careers.

agreed...but an engineer only needs a 4-year degree....a big bang for the buck if you ask me...

That’s actually a BIG part of it. Lawyers and doctors go into MAJOR debt for their career; generally they come from well off families, so they know if they hit any bumps they won’t be destitute and in debt for hundreds of thousands.

Engineers tend to come from LMC backgrounds, and the thought of taking in that much debt is stupefying (the loans for MBA/Law/Med school DWARF the value and mortgage of the houses they grew up in). It’s a hellscape nightmare level of debt, and a risk they can’t stomach with no backup plan.

Cite?

This is documented in many papers.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college-major-rich-families-liberal-arts/397439/

It's lower than English, but in no way is that figure LMC.

LMC kids typically do not get four year degrees.

I am defining the lower middle-class here as folks who would have to move back in with their parents or go on public assistance if things went bad, and moving back in with your parents means moving into a depressed job market with little opportunity.

Basically anyone who is a student that would exceed the value of their parents house. That’s pretty much representative

Most engineering students today come from UMC backgrounds (either in the USA or overseas) and their parents have college degrees.

The impression that engineering is for LMC kids is outdated and based in the fact that back in the post-WWII and post-Vietnam era, it was a popular major for ex-military who were going back to school on the GI bill. This is particularly true since they may have had some exposure to engineering projects in the military and there were many engineering jobs in the Cold War-era defense industry where their military service might have been viewed as a plus.

Yes, for the folks majoring in computer science to be brogrammers at SV startups and FAANG, yes the Wall Street pipeline is flowing there

But aerospace, mechanical, civil and even most electrical engineers are dominated by lower middle/working class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineer here. You might never get rich being an engineer. But there is such joy in having a job that conforms to the laws of physics. Even the biggest BS manager/sales person/lawyer can’t get you to make too much up.

I used to think like this, but came to the realization that the value is not in the engineering, but in the idea that led to the engineering. In other words, the value of the original iPhone's touch screen isn't the engineering to realize the touchscreen itself, but the idea about the touchscreen and how it should function. You can call the people that come up with those ideas "BS manager", laugh at the sales guys, but there's a reason they make more money than you. I say this as someone with not one but two engineering degrees.

Uh, every engineer in the word would known a touch screen is better, and that resistive touch screens were horrible.

Engineer built the capacitive touch screen to address that idea, and Palm or Android were right on the cusp of deploying products when iPhone came out.

Marketing for iPhones is amazing; but it is also the stellar engineering which makes it stable and high performing.

My point is, the requirements don't come from engineers. So when you say "stable" and "high performing", the underlying specifications that defines these parameters were provided by "BS Managers". Sure a competent touch screen engineer would know what state of the art is, but choosing to use capacitive over resistive is largely driven by product design, not engineering. The fluidity and responsiveness of Apple's implementation was also again driven by product design. Steve Jobs told his engineers to make it fluid and responsive, not the otherway around. Another way to look at it is that Apple certainly did not have a lock on engineering talent. There is nothing Apple could technically achieve from an engineering perspective that Samsung, Nokia, or Palm could not. The difference is in the product design, not engineering capability. Yes, Apple engineering is beautifully done, but that's not where the value of an Apple product lies.