There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an associate research engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $37.67 an hour? That's $78,348 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 12,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many associate research engineers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed listening skills, mechanical skills and creativity.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be an associate research engineer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 11.2% of associate research engineers included cell culture, while 8.7% of resumes included data analysis, and 8.2% of resumes included protein. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the associate research engineer job title. But what industry to start with? Most associate research engineers actually find jobs in the education and health care industries.
If you're interested in becoming an associate research engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 32.9% of associate research engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 34.2% of associate research engineers have master's degrees. Even though most associate research engineers have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an associate research engineer. When we researched the most common majors for an associate research engineer, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on associate research engineer resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an associate research engineer. In fact, many associate research engineer jobs require experience in a role such as research assistant. Meanwhile, many associate research engineers also have previous career experience in roles such as graduate research assistant or internship.
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In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of research engineer you might progress to a role such as process engineer eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title senior project engineer.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 11.2% of associate research engineers listed cell culture on their resume, but soft skills such as listening skills and mechanical skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an associate research engineer. The best states for people in this position are Alaska, California, Massachusetts, and Michigan. Associate research engineers make the most in Alaska with an average salary of $133,380. Whereas in California and Massachusetts, they would average $104,276 and $84,987, respectively. While associate research engineers would only make an average of $84,963 in Michigan, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. California
$104,276
Avg. Salary
2. Michigan
$84,963
Avg. Salary
3. Arizona
$82,369
Avg. Salary