How to Become a Senior Engineer

It takes about ten years to become a senior engineer. First, you must meet the educational requirements and then gain sufficient work experience in your industry.

To become a senior engineer requires, at minimum, a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering field. For some more competitive senior engineering positions, however, a master's degree may be required.

Since senior engineers serve more in a managerial role, an engineering degree may also be supplemented by a master's in business administration. Both of which take about two years to complete.

After earning an engineering degree, it is time to start working in your industry. Expect to work 3 to 6 years as an engineer with some supervisor experience. It takes time to become a senior engineer may be shortened or lengthened based on education level and industry demand.

For example, someone with a master's degree may only need to work three years before being eligible for a senior position; however, someone with a bachelor's degree may need to work 3 to 6 years.

Alternatively, someone in chemical engineering may take longer to become a senior engineer than a biomedical engineer, which is in much more demand.

To become a senior engineer, you need at least three years of experience. Depending on the industry and your educational credentials, it takes anywhere from 3 to 6 years of work experience to be considered for an engineering position.

Someone with a master's degree in engineering, for instance, may only need to work for three years before being considered for a senior position. However, someone with only a bachelor's will most likely need to work for longer in their position before being considered for a senior engineer role.

The industry itself may also impact the time it takes to become a senior engineering position. For instance, Automation and Robotics Engineer, Alternative Energy Engineer, Civil Engineer, Environmental Engineer, Biomedical Engineer, and Systems Software Engineer are all in high demand.

In these fields, engineers may be more likely to be promoted to senior positions in fewer years than others less in demand, such as chemical, electrical, civics, or mechanical engineering.

A senior-level engineer is someone with more extensive knowledge and years of experience developing and designing software programs or applications than other engineers on their team.

As an engineer, there are varying levels of seniority as you move through your career. There are four main levels, including junior, mid-level, senior, and principal engineer.

The first level of engineer is a junior or someone with 0 to 3 years of work experience. A junior engineer is expected to know the language and technology stack and typically earn $59k -- $100k per year.

A mid-level engineer is someone with 1 to 3 years of experience. A mid-level engineer is expected to have a good working knowledge of the language and technology stack and typically earn $110k -- $150k.

A senior engineer is someone with 3 to 5+ years of experience. A senior engineer is expected to have a mastery of the language and tech stack. Senior engineers typically earn $125k -- $200k.

Finally, there's the highest level of engineering known as principal or architect. With 5 to 10+ years of experience, a principal engineer is responsible for the technical stewardship of an application. Principals and Architects typically earn $138k -- $230k.

The role of a senior engineer is to oversee large engineering projects and, when applicable, the teams tasked with completing those projects. As a senior project engineer, a typical day involves preparing, coordinating, and monitoring a project, from the initial conception to the schedule and completion.

All aspects of the project need to be completed to a high standard so senior project engineers perform quality control checks throughout all stages of the schedule to ensure budgets are kept, deadlines are met, and the team's performance is as it should be.

Some common roles of a senior engineer include;

• Coder - writing code for portions of the project

• QA tester - inspection and testing of code from junior-level engineers

• Teacher - helping other engineers fix their code or solve complex problems

• Project Manager - work with management to keep the project on track

• Mentor - showing junior to mid-level engineers the ropes, so to speak