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

What is a senior packaging engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

James Swisher

Packaging engineers may work with boxes, plastic, bottles, cartons, and virtually any container. Their job is to make a product suitable for shipping and purchase. Packaging engineers can work in large manufacturing plants, private consulting firms, and small businesses. Sometimes, their job also includes deciding the best way to package a product.

Packaging engineers are responsible for the beautiful coke bottle and the exciting â€˜Beats by Dre' packaging. Depending on the industry, they may also design, develop and implement systems to package the products.

A senior packaging engineer usually leads a team of engineers and has more responsibility than listed above. He/She may also meet with clients to discuss their needs and brainstorm new and exciting product packages.

Packaging engineers' educational requirements may vary, but you need a bachelor's degree in packaging engineering or a similar field. Some employers may also require certifications in Project Management and similar courses when hiring.

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

James Swisher

Director of Continuing Education, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers

It's truly an exciting time to be an Industrial and Systems Engineer. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects demand for ISEs to grow by 10% over the next ten years, which is much faster than the rate for all occupations. Firms across a broad range of industries will continue to focus on the skills that ISEs bring to improve efficiencies, enhance quality, and lower costs. In addition, ISEs bring skills in the related fields of big data, artificial intelligence, and project management that make them extremely valuable to organizations. ISEs ability to quickly make an impact in an organization also means that their potential for promotion is very good. It's a great profession to be in.

ScoreSenior Packaging EngineerUS Average

Salary

7.6

Avg. Salary $100,060

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 15.21%

Black or African American 4.25%

Hispanic or Latino 10.43%

Unknown 3.88%

White 66.07%

Gender

female 17.63%

male 82.37%

Age - 41

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 - 41

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.1

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior packaging engineer

Explore senior packaging engineer education requirements

Most common senior packaging engineer degrees

Bachelor's

74.7 %

Master's

13.9 %

Associate

5.2 %

Start to develop specific senior packaging engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Project Management	11.66%
Package Development	6.53%
FDA	5.77%
Package Design	5.27%
ASTM	5.20%

Complete relevant senior packaging engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior packaging 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 packaging engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior packaging engineer resumes.

Research senior packaging engineer duties and responsibilities

Create and manage GPO's that affect corporate workstations.
Create and manage OU's for departments for users, locations and workstations, group policies.
Manage in-house process, which include art direction, copy/editorial development, photography, and print production management for domestic/international market.
Configure MDT settings to deploy patches, hotfixes through WSUS during deployment.

Get senior packaging engineer experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a senior packaging engineer. The most common roles before becoming a senior packaging engineer include packaging engineer, packager team lead and engineering internship.

Prepare your senior packaging engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior packaging 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 packaging 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 packaging engineer resume templates

Build a professional senior packaging engineer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your senior packaging engineer resume.

Apply for senior packaging engineer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a senior packaging engineer job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do senior packaging engineers rate their job?

-/5

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1 star

Senior packaging engineer reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on May 2020

Pros

The diversity of tasks, interaction with all stakeholders, continuous learning process, communication. Allows great progression in many technical skills