There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior engineer/scientist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $46.38 an hour? That's $96,464 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 1,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many senior engineers/scientist 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 business skills, analytical skills and writing skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior engineer/scientist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 19.9% of senior engineers/scientist included r, while 7.6% of resumes included facility, and 6.4% of resumes included technical reports. 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 senior engineer/scientist job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior engineers/scientist actually find jobs in the technology and manufacturing industries.
If you're interested in becoming a senior engineer/scientist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 21.6% of senior engineers/scientist have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 28.8% of senior engineers/scientist have master's degrees. Even though most senior engineers/scientist have a college degree, it's possible 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 senior engineer/scientist. When we researched the most common majors for a senior engineer/scientist, we found that they most commonly earn doctoral degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior engineer/scientist resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior engineer/scientist. In fact, many senior engineer/scientist jobs require experience in a role such as engineering scientist. Meanwhile, many senior engineers/scientist also have previous career experience in roles such as research assistant or member, technical staff.
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In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of senior engineer you might progress to a role such as project manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title product management director.
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Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
Cambridge, MA • Private
Stanford, CA • Private
Long Beach, CA • Public
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Ithaca, NY • Private
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Houston, TX • Private
Notre Dame, IN • Private
Pomona, CA • Public
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, 19.9% of senior engineers/scientist listed r on their resume, but soft skills such as business skills and analytical skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior engineer/scientist. The best states for people in this position are Texas, California, Colorado, and Alaska. Senior engineers/scientist make the most in Texas with an average salary of $128,239. Whereas in California and Colorado, they would average $126,366 and $119,804, respectively. While senior engineers/scientist would only make an average of $119,086 in Alaska, 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
$128,239
Avg. Salary
2. Colorado
$119,805
Avg. Salary
3. California
$126,367
Avg. Salary