There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a principal project engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $59.66 an hour? That's $124,095 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 23,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many principal project engineers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed speaking skills, writing skills and listening skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a principal project engineer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 38.7% of principal project engineers included project management, while 6.2% of resumes included dod, and 5.6% of resumes included risk management. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the principal project engineer job title. But what industry to start with? Most principal project engineers actually find jobs in the technology and manufacturing industries.
If you're interested in becoming a principal project engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 37.7% of principal project engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 45.7% of principal project engineers have master's degrees. Even though most principal project engineers have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a principal project engineer. When we researched the most common majors for a principal project engineer, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on principal project engineer resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a principal project engineer. In fact, many principal project engineer jobs require experience in a role such as project engineer. Meanwhile, many principal project engineers also have previous career experience in roles such as senior engineer or project manager.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a principal project engineer can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as project manager, progress to a title such as development manager and then eventually end up with the title senior engineering manager.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 38.7% of principal project engineers listed project management on their resume, but soft skills such as speaking skills and writing skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a principal project engineer. The best states for people in this position are Texas, Rhode Island, Delaware, and California. Principal project engineers make the most in Texas with an average salary of $145,213. Whereas in Rhode Island and Delaware, they would average $140,614 and $134,853, respectively. While principal project engineers would only make an average of $131,310 in California, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Texas
$145,213
Avg. Salary
2. Rhode Island
$140,614
Avg. Salary
3. Delaware
$134,854
Avg. Salary