Contract mechanical designer vs senior engineer

The differences between contract mechanical designers and senior 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 contract mechanical designer and a senior engineer. Additionally, a senior engineer has an average salary of $108,743, which is higher than the $69,294 average annual salary of a contract mechanical designer.

The top three skills for a contract mechanical designer include R, BOM and auto cad. The most important skills for a senior engineer are java, python, and architecture.

Contract mechanical designer vs senior engineer overview

	Contract Mechanical Designer	Senior Engineer
Yearly salary	$69,294	$108,743
Hourly rate	$33.31	$52.28
Growth rate	2%	2%
Number of jobs	72,152	343,200
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Associate Degree, 49%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Average age	41	41
Years of experience	6	6

Contract mechanical designer vs senior engineer salary

Contract mechanical designers and senior engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Contract Mechanical Designer	Senior Engineer
Average salary	$69,294	$108,743
Salary range	Between $52,000 And $91,000	Between $82,000 And $144,000
Highest paying City	-	San Mateo, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	Roku
Best paying industry	-	Start-up

Differences between contract mechanical designer and senior engineer education

There are a few differences between a contract mechanical designer and a senior engineer in terms of educational background:

	Contract Mechanical Designer	Senior Engineer
Most common degree	Associate Degree, 49%	Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Most common major	Drafting And Design	Electrical Engineering
Most common college	Carnegie Mellon University	Michigan Technological University

Contract mechanical designer vs senior engineer demographics

Here are the differences between contract mechanical designers' and senior engineers' demographics:

	Contract Mechanical Designer	Senior Engineer
Average age	41	41
Gender ratio	Male, 92.6% Female, 7.4%	Male, 89.1% Female, 10.9%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.5% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.8% Asian, 10.2% White, 71.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%	Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 17.1% White, 67.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%
LGBT Percentage	5%	5%

Differences between contract mechanical designer and senior engineer duties and responsibilities

Contract mechanical designer example responsibilities.

Work with JPL / NASA packaging and fabrication engineering leads (on-site).
Correspond with various vendors to select proper HVAC equipment.
Develop detail drawings, mechanize animations, bill of materials, ECO, and ECR's.
Generate ECO to update part specification in accordance with manufacturing requirements.
Create designs and documentation to facilitate manufacture of products including drawings, BOM and material specifications.
Design and automate electro-mechanical machinery to customer specifications.

Senior engineer example responsibilities.

Tune the TCP/IP, NFS and CIFS for 1Gb and 10Gb Ethernet to achieve performance goals.
Manage multiple releases of a global CRM initiative with on time and within budget deployment.
Implement and support migration tool used to automate promotion of code throughout all SDLC environments.
Manage & lead process analysis, design, & ERP implementation engagements at various client locations.
Design, lead design, or participate in design of five T/R modules for phase array antennas.
Create customized shell scripts to start-up and shut-down WebLogic admin and manage servers and integrate them with the OS.

Contract mechanical designer vs senior engineer skills

Common contract mechanical designer skills

R, 9%
BOM, 8%
Auto CAD, 7%
Mechanical Design, 6%
Layout Drawings, 6%
Product Development, 5%

Common senior engineer skills

Java, 10%
Python, 9%
Architecture, 7%
JavaScript, 4%
API, 4%
GIT, 3%

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Contract Mechanical Designer
Contract Mechanical Designer vs Senior Engineer

Updated January 8, 2025

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