Space engineer vs flight test engineer

The differences between space engineers and flight test engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a space engineer and a flight test engineer. Additionally, a space engineer has an average salary of $97,322, which is higher than the $90,538 average annual salary of a flight test engineer.

The top three skills for a space engineer include MATLAB, data analysis and payload. The most important skills for a flight test engineer are control room, data analysis, and test procedures.

Space engineer vs flight test engineer overview

	Space Engineer	Flight Test Engineer
Yearly salary	$97,322	$90,538
Hourly rate	$46.79	$43.53
Growth rate	6%	6%
Number of jobs	23,825	26,384
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 84%	Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Average age	44	44
Years of experience	4	4

Space engineer vs flight test engineer salary

Space engineers and flight test engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Space Engineer	Flight Test Engineer
Average salary	$97,322	$90,538
Salary range	Between $74,000 And $126,000	Between $66,000 And $123,000
Highest paying City	-	Palo Alto, CA
Highest paying state	-	Illinois
Best paying company	-	Amazon
Best paying industry	-	Transportation

Differences between space engineer and flight test engineer education

There are a few differences between a space engineer and a flight test engineer in terms of educational background:

	Space Engineer	Flight Test Engineer
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 84%	Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Most common major	Electrical Engineering	Aerospace Engineering
Most common college	Stanford University	Georgia Institute of Technology

Space engineer vs flight test engineer demographics

Here are the differences between space engineers' and flight test engineers' demographics:

	Space Engineer	Flight Test Engineer
Average age	44	44
Gender ratio	Male, 74.0% Female, 26.0%	Male, 89.6% Female, 10.4%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 4.2% Unknown, 4.4% Hispanic or Latino, 11.0% Asian, 11.0% White, 69.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%	Black or African American, 4.2% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 11.4% Asian, 10.9% White, 68.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	8%	8%

Differences between space engineer and flight test engineer duties and responsibilities

Space engineer example responsibilities.

Involve working directly with engineering and other organizations and NASA personnel to accomplish these tasks.
Provide consultation to the ISO team in achieving certification, and enable company to win many more deals as a result.
Experience at maximum likelihood base approach to compute RF array direction finding performance.
Develop synthesize-able decimation filter architecture.
Develop synthesize-able decimation filter architecture.

Flight test engineer example responsibilities.

Track and manage team budget, schedule, risks, change information, BOMs, labor and materials costs.
Manage Terraform and refactore from monolithic to application specific components.
Create complex flight test plans to meet DoD and FAA requirements.
Test facility engineer (TFE) responsible for design and development of test rigs, test stands, and fixtures.
Maintain a DOD secret security clearance.
Support both STC approval and design qualification.

Space engineer vs flight test engineer skills

Common space engineer skills

MATLAB, 45%
Data Analysis, 29%
Payload, 13%
NASA, 10%
Engineering Support, 2%
Configuration Management, 1%

Common flight test engineer skills

Control Room, 7%
Data Analysis, 6%
Test Procedures, 6%
Avionics, 6%
DOD, 5%
Test Execution, 4%