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Senior electrical designer vs instrumentation engineer

The differences between senior electrical designers and instrumentation engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a senior electrical designer and an instrumentation engineer. Additionally, an instrumentation engineer has an average salary of $88,783, which is higher than the $87,859 average annual salary of a senior electrical designer.

The top three skills for a senior electrical designer include electrical design, revit and electrical equipment. The most important skills for an instrumentation engineer are PLC, autocad, and analyzers.

Senior electrical designer vs instrumentation engineer overview

Senior Electrical DesignerInstrumentation Engineer
Yearly salary$87,859$88,783
Hourly rate$42.24$42.68
Growth rate3%3%
Number of jobs78,83845,735
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeAssociate Degree, 50%Bachelor's Degree, 79%
Average age4545
Years of experience22

What does a senior electrical designer do?

A Senior Electrical Designer is in charge of creating electrical schematics, layouts, and other grid plans for their organization, as well as providing the best solution for improvements. They supervise the material, construction, labor costs, and project timescales.

What does an instrumentation engineer do?

An instrumentation engineer specializes in designing and developing equipment to optimize business processes. Their responsibilities revolve around performing research and analysis to identify the needs of a company, coordinating with different departments to gather data, devising strategies to create new processes, and preparing reports and presentations for the executives. An instrumentation engineer mostly performs installations and repairs; they also conduct regular maintenance to ensure the efficiency of facilities. Furthermore, they must answer inquiries and resolve issues and concerns, all in adherence to the company's policies and regulations.

Senior electrical designer vs instrumentation engineer salary

Senior electrical designers and instrumentation engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Electrical DesignerInstrumentation Engineer
Average salary$87,859$88,783
Salary rangeBetween $66,000 And $116,000Between $65,000 And $119,000
Highest paying CityCeres, CACupertino, CA
Highest paying stateAlaskaCalifornia
Best paying companyLam ResearchApple
Best paying industryManufacturingGovernment

Differences between senior electrical designer and instrumentation engineer education

There are a few differences between a senior electrical designer and an instrumentation engineer in terms of educational background:

Senior Electrical DesignerInstrumentation Engineer
Most common degreeAssociate Degree, 50%Bachelor's Degree, 79%
Most common majorElectrical EngineeringElectrical Engineering
Most common collegeMichigan Technological UniversityMichigan Technological University

Senior electrical designer vs instrumentation engineer demographics

Here are the differences between senior electrical designers' and instrumentation engineers' demographics:

Senior Electrical DesignerInstrumentation Engineer
Average age4545
Gender ratioMale, 89.2% Female, 10.8%Male, 91.2% Female, 8.8%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.8% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 11.0% Asian, 14.5% White, 64.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%Black or African American, 4.9% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 11.5% Asian, 15.5% White, 63.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage6%6%

Differences between senior electrical designer and instrumentation engineer duties and responsibilities

Senior electrical designer example responsibilities.

  • Lead all phases of facility HAZWOPER projects including environmental HVAC upgrades and environmental remediation initiatives.
  • Design control systems according to NFPA 79 and IEC 204 electrical standards.
  • Coordinate safety training and ensure OSHA compliance through training and site review.
  • Design include various NFPA requirements (including fire pumps).
  • Document existing control panels, HMI, and PLC s, to move or duplicate for the new operators control building.
  • Red-Line several large instrument/Electrical packages for as-built.
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Instrumentation engineer example responsibilities.

  • Coordinate with senior electrical engineers and achieve hands-on experience on coal fire plant power generation and power transformers, circuit breakers.
  • Develop control systems using advance controllers like PLC and DCS to improve efficiency of the system, productivity and optimize operations.
  • Perform troubleshooting on HMI's.
  • Complete monthly safety training and adhere to all OSHA mandate regulations.
  • Generate and update wiring on wiring module of SPI and prepares panel strip reports.
  • Determine and prepare all system configurations, selection of suitable devices and prepare I/O summary.
  • Show more

Senior electrical designer vs instrumentation engineer skills

Common senior electrical designer skills
  • Electrical Design, 9%
  • Revit, 6%
  • Electrical Equipment, 5%
  • Electrical Systems, 5%
  • Autocad Electrical, 5%
  • NEC, 4%
Common instrumentation engineer skills
  • PLC, 8%
  • Autocad, 6%
  • Analyzers, 5%
  • Troubleshoot, 4%
  • Instrumentation Systems, 4%
  • CAD, 4%

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