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Contract project engineer vs staff engineer

The differences between contract project engineers and staff 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 project engineer and a staff engineer. Additionally, a staff engineer has an average salary of $107,530, which is higher than the $77,050 average annual salary of a contract project engineer.

The top three skills for a contract project engineer include construction projects, construction management and HVAC. The most important skills for a staff engineer are java, python, and architecture.

Contract project engineer vs staff engineer overview

Contract Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Yearly salary$77,050$107,530
Hourly rate$37.04$51.70
Growth rate2%2%
Number of jobs105,706277,011
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 77%Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Average age4141
Years of experience66

Contract project engineer vs staff engineer salary

Contract project engineers and staff engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Contract Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Average salary$77,050$107,530
Salary rangeBetween $56,000 And $105,000Between $69,000 And $167,000
Highest paying City-San Mateo, CA
Highest paying state-California
Best paying company-Flexport
Best paying industry-Telecommunication

Differences between contract project engineer and staff engineer education

There are a few differences between a contract project engineer and a staff engineer in terms of educational background:

Contract Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 77%Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Most common majorMechanical EngineeringElectrical Engineering
Most common collegeGeorgia Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of Technology

Contract project engineer vs staff engineer demographics

Here are the differences between contract project engineers' and staff engineers' demographics:

Contract Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Average age4141
Gender ratioMale, 87.8% Female, 12.2%Male, 87.9% Female, 12.1%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 3.4% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.3% Asian, 12.3% White, 70.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.8% Asian, 16.8% White, 67.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%
LGBT Percentage5%5%

Differences between contract project engineer and staff engineer duties and responsibilities

Contract project engineer example responsibilities.

  • Provide mechanical design and sustaining engineering expertise to troubleshoot manufacturing defect trends and achieve a more robust and producible product.
  • Design and installation of plumbing and fixtures for rest room modifications.
  • Design and installation of plumbing and sprinkler modifications for manufacturing operations.
  • Authore and present technical manuals, troubleshoot guides, technical reports and presentations to provide instructional training to technicians and supervisors.
  • Develop and document design history file for FDA medical device submissions.
  • Develop and authore documentation and test procedures to comply with FDA software verification and validation requirements.
  • Show more

Staff engineer example responsibilities.

  • Manage complete design flow: schematic creation, layout design, PCB fabrication, parts procurement and assembly.
  • Develop and manage technical procedures for quality control to comply with ISO laboratory accreditation.
  • Implement a process for reusing SilverStream Java custom reports and UI code on a ColdFusion server saving 1.5 man-years of development.
  • Develop and document communication stack API, enabling parallel development of third-party stack and UI interface.
  • Participate in relocating network infrastructure, server farm, network monitoring and IP telephony to another data center.
  • Web pages contain HTML and JavaScript.
  • Show more

Contract project engineer vs staff engineer skills

Common contract project engineer skills
  • Construction Projects, 12%
  • Construction Management, 9%
  • HVAC, 8%
  • Shop Drawings, 7%
  • QC, 6%
  • Engineering Support, 6%
Common staff engineer skills
  • Java, 15%
  • Python, 10%
  • Architecture, 7%
  • Software Development, 4%
  • Project Management, 4%
  • API, 3%

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