What Does a Mechanical Engineer Do?

We looked at the average mechanical engineer annual salary and compared it with the average of a product design engineer. Generally speaking, product design engineers receive $19,475 higher pay than mechanical engineers per year.

While their salaries may differ, one common ground between mechanical engineers and product design engineers are a few of the skills required in each craft. In both careers, employees bring forth skills like cad, mechanical design, and hvac.

There are some key differences in responsibilities as well. For example, a mechanical engineer responsibilities require skills like "solidworks," "mechanical systems," "plumbing," and "fire protection." Meanwhile a typical product design engineer has skills in areas such as "design concepts," "nx," "pro-e," and "plastic injection." This difference in skills reveals how truly different these two careers really are.

Product design engineers tend to make the most money in the technology industry by averaging a salary of $116,796. In contrast, mechanical engineers make the biggest average salary of $84,748 in the energy industry.

Product design engineers tend to reach similar levels of education than mechanical engineers. In fact, product design engineers are 0.5% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.1% more likely to have a Doctoral Degree.

The next role we're going to look at is the development engineer profession. Typically, this position earns a higher pay. In fact, they earn a $17,854 higher salary than mechanical engineers per year.

While the salary may be different for these job positions, there is one similarity and that's a few of the skills needed to perform certain duties. We used info from lots of resumes to find that both mechanical engineers and development engineers are known to have skills such as "cad," "solidworks," and "project management. "

But both careers also use different skills, according to real mechanical engineer resumes. While mechanical engineer responsibilities can utilize skills like "mechanical systems," "mechanical design," "hvac," and "plumbing," some development engineers use skills like "java," "python," "c #," and "software development."

On average, development engineers earn a higher salary than mechanical engineers. There are industries that support higher salaries in each profession respectively. Interestingly enough, development engineers earn the most pay in the technology industry with an average salary of $105,648. Whereas, mechanical engineers have higher paychecks in the energy industry where they earn an average of $84,748.

In general, development engineers study at higher levels of education than mechanical engineers. They're 5.2% more likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 0.1% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Let's now take a look at the product engineer profession. On average, these workers make higher salaries than mechanical engineers with a $14,293 difference per year.

While looking through the resumes of several mechanical engineers and product engineers we discovered that both professions have similar skills. These similarities include skills such as "cad," "solidworks," and "hvac," but they differ when it comes to other required skills.

As mentioned, these two careers differ between other skills that are required for performing the work exceedingly well. For example, gathering from mechanical engineers resumes, they are more likely to have skills like "mechanical systems," "mechanical design," "plumbing," and "engineering design." But a product engineer might have skills like "c++," "continuous improvement," "data analysis," and "java."

Additionally, product engineers earn a higher salary in the technology industry compared to other industries. In this industry, they receive an average salary of $90,301. Additionally, mechanical engineers earn an average salary of $84,748 in the energy industry.

Product engineers are known to earn similar educational levels when compared to mechanical engineers. Additionally, they're 1.4% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.2% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

The fourth career we look at typically earns higher pay than mechanical engineers. On average, process engineers earn a difference of $7,091 higher per year.

While both mechanical engineers and process engineers complete day-to-day tasks using similar skills like cad, solidworks, and project management, the two careers also vary in other skills.

While some skills are shared by these professions, there are some differences to note. "mechanical systems," "mechanical design," "hvac," and "plumbing" are skills that have shown up on mechanical engineers resumes. Additionally, process engineer uses skills like continuous improvement, lean six sigma, data analysis, and statistical analysis on their resumes.

Process engineers earn a higher salary in the technology industry with an average of $87,797. Whereas, mechanical engineers earn the highest salary in the energy industry.

Process engineers reach similar levels of education when compared to mechanical engineers. The difference is that they're 0.5% more likely to earn a Master's Degree more, and 0.4% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.