How To Become A Senior Chemical Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior chemical engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Dr. Sanchari Chowdhury Ph.D.

As a senior chemical engineer, your chief responsibility is to ensure the proper manufacturing of organic and inorganic chemicals. You will be in charge of managing the projects assigned to you, which entails high organizational and leadership skills.

Specifically, the duties of a senior chemical engineer revolve around managing project budgets, overseeing manufacturing processes, leading the research procedures, and handling the testing phase. Your responsibilities may also encompass training your subordinate employees and supervising them.

The career path of a senior chemical engineer starts with a degree in chemical engineering. Then, they gain experience in the industry until they can prove they are ready for a senior role, which requires a higher level of knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, they must exhibit outstanding skills in leadership, communication, teamwork, and coordination.

Like other types of engineers on a senior level, senior chemical engineers make an above-average salary of around $104,000 per year or roughly $50 an hour.

What general advice would you give to a senior chemical engineer?

Dr. Sanchari Chowdhury Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Chemical engineers are sought after by a wide range of companies, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, biomedical, food, nuclear and other power generation industries, delicate and heavy chemicals, and environmental protection, to name a few. It will help if you are looking to work for a company that allows them to narrow your focus on the area of chemical engineering that interests you the most. During this uncertain time of the pandemic, we may not be seeing as many as job opportunities as we would like to see. However, it is also true that local recruiters are looking to hire people from within the state to avoid any complications due to travel. So, looking for opportunities within the country is a good option. When it comes to job applications, persistence is the key. Don't get discouraged if you don't hear back after five applications; sometimes, it takes more than fifty applications before you land a job. If your plan includes graduate studies, this may also be a good time to do that.

ScoreSenior Chemical EngineerUS Average

Salary

7.6

Avg. Salary $100,309

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.8

Growth rate 14%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

7.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.38%

Asian 22.10%

Black or African American 3.53%

Hispanic or Latino 9.13%

Unknown 5.60%

White 59.26%

Gender

female 20.23%

male 79.77%

Age - 39

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 - 39

Stress level

6.8

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.3

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior chemical engineer

Explore senior chemical engineer education requirements

Most common senior chemical engineer degrees

Bachelor's

74.3 %

Master's

15.9 %

Doctorate

6.9 %

Start to develop specific senior chemical engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Chemical Engineering	24.67%
Chemistry	9.73%
Project Management	6.59%
IDS	5.56%
Technical Support	4.32%

Complete relevant senior chemical engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior chemical 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 senior chemical engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior chemical engineer resumes.

Research senior chemical engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage Jenkins security by providing specific access to authorize developers/testers using project base matrix authorization strategy.
Consider one of company's batch distillation experts.
Work with suppliers and contractors for several distillation column packing replacement projects.
Process development engineer focuse on formulation and chemistry of key internal resins and adhesives.

Get senior chemical engineer experience

Prepare your senior chemical engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior chemical engineer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a senior chemical engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable senior chemical engineer resume templates

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