How To Become A Solar Design Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a solar design engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a solar design engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $39.15 an hour? That's $81,424 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 9,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreSolar Design EngineerUS Average

Salary

6.4

Avg. Salary $81,424

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.4

Growth rate 3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.28%

Asian 20.87%

Black or African American 4.05%

Hispanic or Latino 10.04%

Unknown 4.67%

White 60.09%

Gender

female 7.41%

male 92.59%

Age - 42

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 - 42

Stress level

5.4

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.6

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.1

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a solar design engineer

Explore solar design engineer education requirements

Most common solar design engineer degrees

Bachelor's

69.2 %

Master's

15.4 %

Associate

11.5 %

Start to develop specific solar design engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Renewable Energy	19.81%
CAD	15.21%
Solar PV	13.57%
Design Engineering	11.56%
Line Diagrams	9.36%

Complete relevant solar design engineer training and internships

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

Research solar design engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage automation projects including purchasing, scheduling fabrication and assembly, debugging, and delivery to customer.
Develop RF products base on low to high level implementation specifications base on customer or requests or company design modification requirements.
Install and maintain AirTap heat pump water heater retrofit reducing hot water energy demand.

Prepare your solar design engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your solar design 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 solar design 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 solar design engineer resume templates

Build a professional solar design 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 solar design engineer resume.