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The differences between customer engineers 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 customer engineer and a staff design engineer. Additionally, a staff design engineer has an average salary of $128,071, which is higher than the $101,212 average annual salary of a customer engineer.
The top three skills for a customer engineer include customer service, technical problems and level agreements. The most important skills for a staff design engineer are architecture, RF, and CAD.
| Customer Engineer | Staff Design Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $101,212 | $128,071 |
| Hourly rate | $48.66 | $61.57 |
| Growth rate | 3% | 3% |
| Number of jobs | 44,709 | 154,963 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 46% | Bachelor's Degree, 66% |
| Average age | 45 | 45 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
A customer engineer provides technical support to organizations having issues with their products or services. Duties and responsibilities may vary depending on the sector, but generally include diagnosing and troubleshooting technical problems with products, performing tests, upgrades and diagnostics to prevent delay or downtime caused by-product issues, and keeping updated reports outlining the problems and measures taken to resolve them. A customer engineer is also responsible for discussing service contracts and their benefits with clients.
Staff design engineers are tasked to assess the efficiency of instruments, technologies, and equipment by collaborating with the engineering team to plan, design, and develop technologies efficiently. Their responsibilities include building and setting up, as wells as improving systems and procedures. They should possess strong attention to detail, good visual and spatial awareness, creativity, problem-solving, excellent verbal, written, and project management skills, and strong mathematical and IT skills to become efficient and effective staff design engineers.
Customer engineers and staff design engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Customer Engineer | Staff Design Engineer | |
| Average salary | $101,212 | $128,071 |
| Salary range | Between $77,000 And $131,000 | Between $89,000 And $182,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | New Jersey | California |
| Best paying company | HBO | |
| Best paying industry | Start-up | Technology |
There are a few differences between a customer engineer and a staff design engineer in terms of educational background:
| Customer Engineer | Staff Design Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 46% | Bachelor's Degree, 66% |
| Most common major | Electrical Engineering | Electrical Engineering |
| Most common college | Stanford University | Northeastern University |
Here are the differences between customer engineers' and staff design engineers' demographics:
| Customer Engineer | Staff Design Engineer | |
| Average age | 45 | 45 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 90.4% Female, 9.6% | Male, 75.7% Female, 24.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 4.8% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 11.1% Asian, 14.5% White, 64.8% 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% |