How To Become An Aircraft Design Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an aircraft design engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an aircraft design engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $49.26 an hour? That's $102,461 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 3,700 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreAircraft Design EngineerUS Average

Salary

7.7

Avg. Salary $102,461

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.4

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

7.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.30%

Asian 11.14%

Black or African American 4.21%

Hispanic or Latino 11.23%

Unknown 4.46%

White 68.66%

Gender

female 12.50%

male 87.50%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

5.4

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.0

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.7

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an aircraft design engineer

Explore aircraft design engineer education requirements

Most common aircraft design engineer degrees

Bachelor's

80.7 %

Master's

7.0 %

Associate

7.0 %

Start to develop specific aircraft design engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
CATIA	18.08%
CAD	16.97%
GD	8.50%
Structural Design	8.42%
Design Reviews	7.91%

Complete relevant aircraft design engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New aircraft design engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an aircraft design engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real aircraft design engineer resumes.

Research aircraft design engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage the development of the next generation products base on existing refrigerants and CO2 system including prototyping and initial manufacturing run.
Formulate conceptual design of aeronautical, aerospace products or systems to meet customer requirements and communicate feed back to design engineers.
Develop and maintain work plans and BOM that support goals for cost, quality and delivery of prototype engine builds.
Originate drawing and model product definition, BOMs, and product life cycle management (PLM) data.

Prepare your aircraft design engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your aircraft design engineer resume.

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