Circuit designer vs staff design engineer

The differences between circuit designers and staff design engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both a circuit designer and a staff design engineer. Additionally, a staff design engineer has an average salary of $128,071, which is higher than the $105,618 average annual salary of a circuit designer.

The top three skills for a circuit designer include cadence, analog and RF. The most important skills for a staff design engineer are architecture, RF, and CAD.

Circuit designer vs staff design engineer overview

	Circuit Designer	Staff Design Engineer
Yearly salary	$105,618	$128,071
Hourly rate	$50.78	$61.57
Growth rate	3%	3%
Number of jobs	44,611	154,963
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Average age	45	45
Years of experience	6	6

Circuit designer vs staff design engineer salary

Circuit designers and staff design engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Circuit Designer	Staff Design Engineer
Average salary	$105,618	$128,071
Salary range	Between $79,000 And $139,000	Between $89,000 And $182,000
Highest paying City	Mountain View, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	California
Best paying company	Apple	HBO
Best paying industry	Manufacturing	Technology

Differences between circuit designer and staff design engineer education

There are a few differences between a circuit designer and a staff design engineer in terms of educational background:

	Circuit Designer	Staff Design Engineer
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Most common major	Electrical Engineering	Electrical Engineering
Most common college	Stanford University	Northeastern University

Circuit designer vs staff design engineer demographics

Here are the differences between circuit designers' and staff design engineers' demographics:

	Circuit Designer	Staff Design Engineer
Average age	45	45
Gender ratio	Male, 66.9% Female, 33.1%	Male, 75.7% Female, 24.3%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 4.9% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 11.4% Asian, 16.6% White, 62.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 4.4% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.7% Asian, 23.8% White, 57.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	6%	6%

Differences between circuit designer and staff design engineer duties and responsibilities

Circuit designer example responsibilities.

Manage and assign company facilities and assets through the use of: circuit reports, manual logs and PC generate reports.
Configure, document, and support routers, switches, and VPN.
Used handheld computers and pressure gauges.
Test and measurement of various RF circuits.
Develop schematic & PCB footprints for component library.
Transition to in-circuit testing of complete circuit boards.

Staff design engineer example responsibilities.

Manage aspects of commercial architecture projects, develop solutions to problems that arise during construction.
Manage complex resolution of provisioning issues and develop practices and procedures for circuit installation and maintenance.
Design parts and Verilog libraries for PCB system level integration.
Design ASIC base control electronics for an army smart sub-munition (SADARM).
Re-Implement porting and connecting script for design auto generation from scratch using Perl.
Design of VSWR protection circuit for CMOS power amplifiers integrate in WLAN product lines.

Circuit designer vs staff design engineer skills

Common circuit designer skills

Cadence, 11%
Analog, 10%
RF, 7%
MATLAB, 7%
IP, 6%
CMOS, 5%

Common staff design engineer skills

Architecture, 6%
RF, 6%
CAD, 5%
Synthesis, 5%
Analog, 5%
SOC, 4%

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Circuit Designer vs Staff Design Engineer

Updated January 8, 2025

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