How To Become A Field Operations Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a field operations engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Dr. Alison Graettinger

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a field operations engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $34.8 an hour? That's $72,375 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 1,900 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a field operations engineer?

Dr. Alison Graettinger

Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Missouri - Kansas City

Some common challenges for field based positions is the amount of travel involved or working in extreme weather conditions.

ScoreField Operations EngineerUS Average

Salary

5.7

Avg. Salary $72,375

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.0

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.29%

Asian 17.01%

Black or African American 4.33%

Hispanic or Latino 10.86%

Unknown 4.76%

White 62.76%

Gender

female 6.39%

male 93.61%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

8.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.6

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a field operations engineer

Explore field operations engineer education requirements

Most common field operations engineer degrees

Bachelor's

70.0 %

Associate

15.3 %

Master's

8.0 %

Start to develop specific field operations engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
RF	10.21%
Switches	8.76%
Test Equipment	6.79%
Routers	6.08%
Technical Support	5.89%

Complete relevant field operations engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New field operations engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a field operations engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real field operations engineer resumes.

Research field operations engineer duties and responsibilities

Promote from original position as a staff engineer managing a variety of geotechnical engineering activities to a field engineer inspector position.
Identify, troubleshoot and repair complex integrate avionics, RF and fiber optic system failures as they occur.
Install VOIP routers at customer premises as requested.
Ensure code quality by writing unit tests using PyUnit and automate this testing using GitHub and Jenkins.

Prepare your field operations engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your field operations engineer resume.

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Choose from 10+ customizable field operations engineer resume templates

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