1. Those ranges look like they are either for O&G Supermajors or for people who are already accredited, that is not by any means an average range for Engineers in O&G.
2. Try getting a job in that field pre-2006
3. Civil Engineers, Mechanical Engineers do not make nearly as much fresh out of college and their salaries have fairly strict ceilings unless they open their own shop, go into management, consult or specialize
4. If we are really going down this route become a Geophysicist or spend 6 months at a trade school and go and work in Northern Alberta or Australia's mining industry and retire in 10 years.

Lots of threads about this on WSO. If you are basing your decision off of compensation, then looking at starting salaries are meaningless. Finance offers a high salary after graduation, yes, but the real money is made 3, 5, or 10 years down the road. The increase is much faster than in other industries.

I'm not an engineer, so I could be wrong in my assumptions though. Presumably engineers also want to be engineers because they find the work more interesting.

Petroleum engineering is a niche field for the deep South as you can imagine why. Engineering starting salary outta UG is typically 50-70k I believe. Masters its more 70-90k, PHD 90-100k ish i think. Problem with engineering is you start off with a good salary, but you cap out around 110-120k until you jump from being an engineer to being a manager. But once you get to that point I believe with all the bureaucracy it gets extremely hard to move up like any F500 company from low-mid manager to next level.

I have lots of friends in ChemE/MechE who made the switch to finance/consulting after an internship or two. Unless you're doing petro at a huge company down in Texas or something, engineering salaries are pretty dismal, especially for the intellectual talent you're putting in. Most of my friends chose not to work in industry because it was, as they put it, "mind-numbing" and "boring". Of course, this is primarily because:

1) Working in industry is restricting. You're part of one tiny part of one tiny segment of one product. I had a friend who worked at P&G, he was responsible for refining some kind of cotton thread they were using. It was just a cog-in-the-wheel feeling.

2) Engineers tend to choose their majors because they want to -create- in some way or form (especially MechE's-- think robotics, etc.) Unfortunately, the opportunities available to actually do this in industry is few and far between (unless you're doing a startup). So instead of devoting their life to being a drone, developing trivial items for a company, they choose to pursue business instead so that, 5-10 years down the line, they CAN exit and do their own startups. I guess you could also do this by starting in industry, but I assume the pay has something to do with it.

That's the common rationale I hear amongst my engineering friends, anyways.

Petroleum engineering is a pretty niche degree, but a lot of mechanical engineers (I am one) can apply for these jobs since there is a lot of overlap in concepts. I think the high salary has to do with the demands of the job, rig engineers do 2 weeks on a rig and 2 weeks off so work-life isn't that great. Refineries are usually in the middle of nowhere so there has to be some sort of premium to make an engineer live out there. I know a good amount of mechanical engineers starting as process engineers at 80-90k in Houston. Also, O&G is flush with money. A lot of kids at my school become project managers at O&G in Houston making 90-110k all in. Engineers outside of O&G can also make that kind of money. I have had offers for product design low-mid 6 figs entry level.

I know I've had a lot of friends go to pretty standard state schools and get sweet engineering jobs coming out of them, so I'm sure it's less true, but is the strength of the program itself, not of the school in general, what's more important here?

Not too sure what you mean here, a lot of good schools have strong programs. Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Carnegie Melon, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UT, and Rice all have strong engineering programs and are targets for different industries/regions. I guess it is not as prestige heavy like HYPS -> IB.

I personally want to switch to finance because its more money in the long run with less thinking (no offense). I don't want to CAD designs or run computational fluid simulations all day when I can make the same kind of money as an IB analyst for formatting ppts and excel models. It is also a low ceiling like you said, comp isn't really performance based as it is in finance. Also, there are more transferable skills in IB which would be better in the long run of your career unless you want to be an engineer for life.

From what I've seen, a lot of pet. engineers move around internally at supermajors. I interned in the commercial trading dept. this summer at one and a lot of the traders were former engineers, not sure how typical this is at other places. I know at BP, anyone in the company can take the test to be on the fast track to become a trader, not just TDP candidates. I personally want to move into finance/consulting but my gpa took a hit with the courseload (3.3) so I haven't been too successful with getting interviews, will have to get my MBA to rebrand which is what a lot of engineers end up doing after they realize they don't want to be designing phones for the next ten years.

This topic has been explained over and over. Yes engineers can have a higher starting salary. Same with those few that get jobs at places like Google or Facebook. Bankers have a much higher earning potential after a few years and that's not even talking about PE/HF guys. They are making much more.

Although the super geniuses may start at these places, their $150000 per year will not increase too much over their careers. Finance allows for much higher earning potential.

I have two things to add to this:

1. I come from a rural part of the country, and most of my friends graduated with engineering degrees. My 3 closest friends ended up with ~80k, 40 hrs per week, firms pay for any part-time education they want. Combine this with the extremely low costs of living where we're from, and they're absolutely killing it. Obviously the comp doesn't increase like in finance down the road, but you're still doing better than most people.

2. As part of my job I work with partners at some of the larger U.S engineering firms. The guys I see are making about $200k, plus bonuses ~$200-400k. Additionally, they are allowed to buy shares in the firm, which seem to appreciate at a fairly steady value. Once they retire, the shares are repurchased by the firm, creating a pretty sweet windfall at the end.

This is just based on my experiences and isn't meant to represent every single person in engineering. Just my .02 from what I see.

Engineer to physical trader here.

I think at the undergraduate level engineering (or comp sci/math/physics) is hands down the best degree you can get. Finance can vary from Bumblefuck State to Wharton but engineering is pretty standard across the board; it's difficult, rigorous and tough. With an undergraduate engineering degree you are automatically (double edged sword I guess) perceived to be quantitative and smart--if you take a couple of finance classes and are extroverted enough to hold a conversation, you have the perfect skill-set to thrive in trading. If not, you can always get an MBA and be "converted" to the typical finance guy.

Yes, the salaries (particularly in O&G) are nice. It isn't unheard of petroEs getting clearing six figures with a bachelors and even if you aren't making 120k out on a rig/platform, you can be at a major with a desk job pulling 80-90k with a 9/80 schedule and fat 401k/healthcare benefits. E&P companies pay high salaries as well, particularly if you go to "dangerous areas" and get hazard-pay. I have a buddy who worked in Saudi and cleared half a mill a year and mostly untaxed.

However the aforementioned cases are atypical examples--most of the majors recruit the top students in their engineering class and the competition can be pretty fierce (trust me, you can't wing you way out of a in-compressible fluid mechanics final and pray for an A). Also there is more potential upside in your income in trading rather than engineering. Most engineers will cap out at 100-200k a year unless they break into upper management/C-level (and good look with that at Exxon) .

Yet above all, you have to really have a passion or drive to stick to what you are doing--sure the salaries (in wall street, engineering, or whatever) might seem enticing but if you honest-to-god hate staring at P&ID diagrams or Bloomberg all day, no damn pay check is going to cut it. I personally found engineering interesting but got bored with it and had a natural knack/fit with trading.

My cousin has bachelors in chemical engineering, works at BP, 5 years out and hit the ceiling at 138K. I would imagine for guys like him, any further increase in pay is a function of managerial skills...His hours are awesome tho...

I'm pretty sure most of the comments here already touched upon this point, but engineers usually have a much more stagnating progression in their careers and cap out early in terms of income. Although, it is true that they generally start at much higher salaries, particularly in O&G.

Case in point: two of my friends who are working at top companies (Exxon & Schlumberger) are paid roughly 110-140K (bonus included) straight out of undergrad.

It's a great starting point but they definitely don't have as much upside compared to someone in high finance.

Petroleum engineering is highly specialized and is essentially not marketable at all outside of the O&G industry (at the end of the day a facilities engineer for an E&P company can still get employment at a factory, a drilling engineer can not, etc). Due to oil price being low for decades and then a extremely fast increase in oil price led to a very acute shortage of qualified drilling/reservoir/production people. Once the labor market equalizes wages will come down. All O&G wages are up - but Petroleum Engineers benefited the most. If you aren't making 135k+ (at a minimum) @ 5 years you should probably be looking for a new job.

Finance can make very good money - but you have to get in. That's the key, and a lot of finance jobs exist below of the ultrahigh earning sphere of 350K+/yearly income. First you have to get into high finance and then you have to survive. No easy feat. In fact, that's the entire reason websites like the one we're on currently exists.

The problem with engineering is that there is a much shorter pay ladder than say, finance or accy.

You graduate, you get an $80K job. 20 years later, you are making $150K. That's where it caps out.

Synergies and connections do not matter in engineering. In general the most an engineer makes as an engineer is six figures that start with one.

The prestige factor is about as big as Big Four accounting. As in, if you graduate from a flagship state school, the F500 will probably be happy to hire you. For a CS major, even Google and Microsoft will interview you and give you the same (tough) shot as the MIT kid.

Engineering skills are typically easier to evaluate. You either know it or you don't.

But the US is switching to natural gas. I'm not sure I would want to be an oilfield engineer in fifteen years. At the same time, I think a lot of industry is going to come back from China. Chinese workers are demanding more and US productivity is up while pay is down. That bodes well for manufacturing. So mechanical engineering or industrial engineering might be better choices.

1 in the world motherfucker

Engineers want to be consultants, consultants want to be in finance, and people in finance want to quit their jobs.

When you say "engineers" you're talking very generally. Some engineers, like construction, make 45k while others, like aerospace and petroleum, can bring in 70k out of undergrad. This isn't an uncommon salary for someone in MBB consulting, BB, or F500 FP&A with only 0-1 year of experience. Yet, in the long run (like others have said) your opportunities to increase salary are more vast. Engineering, you better do a damn good job, get that great MBA, and hope to climb the good old corporate ladder.

Even then, it's a little odd, but you often see many of the top paid executives at engineer/tech centered firms with backgrounds in corporate finance or sales-oriented roles.

I live in Texas and my friend recently graduated and accepted a job at Baker Hughes. Starting salary $150,000 + options. The true reason there getting paid so much is because of the age gap, old fuckers retiring, and the shortage of engineers in the eagle ford and barnett shale play. M&A activity down here is awesome. As an IB guy I can say in the long run IB will have its benefits and will beat that pay in 5 years or less. That is if you stay in IB. For you IB analyst, associates, and etc., you may want to make a transition into the natural resources division. Its not going to slow down either, as I am sure your all aware.

There are tests you have to pass in order to practice and they are no joke. I started out as an engineer and it really makes you appreciate how easy business, economics, and accounting courses actually are. If you can get A's in engineering courses then IMO you can do pretty much anything.

Time will answer that. Ha, he is living in a tent/hotel room. But hes not spending a dime until he gets time off.

DonVon:

Is the concept of "target" schools not a thing when it comes to gaining entry-level employment in engineering?

There are target school for engineering, but they aren't the school's you'd typically think of. Like take California for example Berkeley, Stanford, and Cal Tech are the top ones, then The Cal Polys and the Claremont Colleges, but neither is really far a head. You can pick the college you want by choosing the area you want to live in and loss little to nothing, except for a lot of money if you go to the private ones.

DonVon:

I know I've had a lot of friends go to pretty standard state schools and get sweet engineering jobs coming out of them, so I'm sure it's less true, but is the strength of the program itself, not of the school in general, what's more important here?

The program comes above the school name and as a school develops a strong program and can keep it up it'll start to become a target. Some schools are thought to be more specialized then others in certain disciplines.

DonVon:

Also, these salaries start out high, but I'm assuming the ceiling is pretty low (at least relative to finance). Anyone have information about this? What would be the career track for someone in petroleum engineering, or chemical engineering, for example? What happens to compensation as the engineer progresses?

Relative is so relative. On a per hour biases you can earn just as much as any one in finance in the lower to middle range, Finance really takes off in the upper rungs. As for a career path this is where it gets really sweet, as an engineer you can major in any type and get just about any job within the engineering field, this goes especially for an asto engineering. All you need to do is get good grades in high school, get into a decent program public or private, doesn't really matter. From there on it's pretty much up to you how high you go, there's little need to go back and get a masters unless you want to go from say civil to biomech, and little to no need for a PhD. But, that being said it is really easy to reach the top of the compensation scale since raises are pretty generous and plentiful as you show your worth. Each field is different, but my buddy that used to do petro hit the cap in 4 years and then switched career paths.

DonVon:

Engineers out there why want to switch to finance -- why? Nature of work? Comp?

The reason is usually the same reason most of you get into finance, the compensatio. Oh, and the models and bottles.

I am an aerospace engineer trying to break into IB. You will be doing the same thing over and over again. You won't get to play anything big.

ladubs, you're underestimating those starting salaries by quite a bit. Also, you're waaay off on the earning potential for experienced guys in O&G, even those working non-management engineering desk jobs.

IlliniProgrammer, even if global warming is a problem, what's relevant is whether governments will actually form a coordinated international response to it (tough to say given emerging markets would actually like to industrialize). Also, even if we implement carbon taxes or cap-and-trade, it's likely we'd still use substantial quantities of fossil fuels in conjunction with CCS technology, which also happens to use the skillset of O&G engineers. By the way, oil engineers also happen to know how to extract natural gas, too - we're talking working with the same types of reservoirs/technology. I don't see a total switch to natural gas in the U.S., which despite current low gas prices I don't think will occur to extreme extent you imply, putting oilfield engineers out of work so soon.

I completed my undergrad in mech eng at a university in Canada (Waterloo in case anyone in the states knows it). A lot of my friends in mech and chem eng are working in the oil and gas industry out in alberta. Standard starting package for a fresh grad at a good company (eg. Suncor, Syncrude etc.) is around 90k base, and with an average bonus you're pulling 130k. With a reasonable amount of OT every few months (maybe a 65 hour week) a lot of people are pulling in 200k - not bad coming out of undergrad. Those numbers are for Fort. McMurray though - so not the greatest place to live. You're looking at low 100k all-in if you're working out of Calgary as a fresh grad. At my company, you can expect to be pulling 200k+ working 40 hours a week with over 2 months in vacation working in Calgary.

The ceiling for engineering definitely isn't as high as finance though, and I don't know enough about finance to have an understanding of how many people out of the analyst class actually make it to VP and MD where you're making serious dough.

generally, the engineers ive dated have been bores, and the bankers have been money chasing narcisists. dont even get me started on lawyers...

my new target? tech startup entrepenereus (who arent living out of their parents basement). is patrick single? :)

Anomanderis:

IlliniProgrammer:

dtm644:

There are tests you have to pass in order to practice and they are no joke. I started out as an engineer and it really makes you appreciate how easy business, economics, and accounting courses actually are. If you can get A's in engineering courses then IMO you can do pretty much anything.

I dunno. I studied CS (engineering) in undergrad and I am getting crushed in behavioral economics in grad school right now. Solving Nash Equilibriums is just as tough as Fourier transforms.

Some engineers make boatloads. Some engineers cap out at $150K. Common wisdom five years ago was that fewer engineers and CS majors were killing it than finance/econ majors. That may have changed.

Apples and oranges bro. You're comparing undergrad Fourier to Grad school stuff? Try hacking some DSP code with matlab or C++/Fortran, or designing/evaluating an algorithm performance.

I get your point, but then again, the financial industry is currently contracting. Is there anyone here who can compare say - Silicon Valley pre dotcom to wall street pre-bubble?

Skill sets between finance and engineering majors can vary quite a bit, and many finance degrees are very quantitative. Sure, some engineers may have a bit better grounding in it, but if your finance degree is at all respectable it was a very quantitative program - or at least quantitative enough to do well.

It's different types of people from what I've seen, and both can do incredibly well, and both tend to do well at their jobs. The number of people majoring in finance though should probably be a bit lower.

Apples and oranges bro. You're comparing undergrad Fourier to Grad school stuff? Try hacking some DSP code with matlab or C++/Fortran, or designing/evaluating an algorithm performance.

Seriously, Nash Equilibriums are tougher than proving an algorithm is sound, complete, and runs in O(n^2) time. Constructing a behavioral finance model takes ten pages of calculus, some hard core probability along with sometimes a diffyq; proof by induction takes two pages of logical reasoning and maybe an application of DeMorgan's law or some shortest path lemma.

I should have gone for a CS PhD. Econ/Finance isn't always tough, but I think you can make it as tough as Applied Math, which IMHO was tougher than you could normally make CS or Engineering.

One thing:

You are comparing Princeton Econ to Illinois Engineering. The major comparison should be within the same school. It's essentially a law that at the undergrad level Engineering is far harder then Econ at virtually any institution in the US except perhaps the top 15 schools in the nation.

Idunno. The CS courses I'm taking here are a bit easier than what I took at Illinois, while the finance courses are a bit tougher.

What sucks about state school engineering is that they don't care if you graduate or not. What's nice about it is that this gives them license to put you through a bit more of the meat grinder than the liberal artsier schools.

I've confirmed some of my suspicions about engineering in the Ivies (though it's not as bad as I thought) but also gotten a little less dismissive of econ as a "liberal arts degree from a liberal arts school for people who want to go into banking because they can't do math." Yeah, I got that one wrong. Sorry to all the folks I may have pissed off with that view.

If you are considering finance vs. tech career, consider computer science as a major.

My highly subjective, small sized, potentially biased sample from a high ranked Oxbridge college, 2 years after graduation (haven't kept in touch past that): - computer scientists with average grades (2.1, 2.2 - note - from Oxbridge, not average unis) are making 100k GBP; those smart enough to do so as contractors do so being taxed 15%. - average IB analysts in bulge bracket are making maybe 50-80k GBP - most of the traders quit; the remaining few are on 90k GBP inc bonus (taxed at the ridiculous British rates) - consultants were making 40-60k GBP - engineers were the lowest; civil engineers, 20-30k, mechanical, 40k, oil and gas, 40-60k. This reflects ample supply and historically low demand in the former's skills, coupled with the need to further the engineer's training so he can be useful post graduation (which costs you more money).

Where computer science is a great deal is: - base case where you just get a corporate dev job out of an Ivy (Google, Facebook, or - shudder - Cisco), is still damn well paid vs anything except finance. You will find plenty of dev jobs in hedge funds if you want to keep a finance bend, even in front office - Bridgewater requires its trade ideas to be presented in algorithm format. I've been told, but did not check, that the base you need to pay a decent programmer in Silicon Valley is over 120k USD - and this is when you have a cool idea and you give him equity. - work is interesting to a tech guy with a decent brain - yes even at Oracle, building stuff is fun - the high sigma high reward case is just phenomenal. I heard of a second degree connection with Master's from an Ivy having two offers from hedge funds both with a package above 1m USD. I don't know what field he was working in but it's a VERY attractive one to the quant world apparently. There is enormous demand for good programmers in finance, coupled with a natural disgust in the community of such programmers for this kind of work (they'd rather build the next Facebook/Viber/whatever). - very portable to trading. CS allows you to formalize and express ideas in a very neat way which is directly applicable to the kind of thinking that allows you to survive more than a year in markets. - no politics. Like a P&L, code doesn't BS and is ultimately your yardstick (less true in corporate, of course; great engineers won't stay there long though as there is so much demand for them elsewhere).

The above is because your value is quantifiable and unlike trading, demonstrably so. A great programmer can be worth 200x a normal one.

If I could go back, I'd have studied CS over engineering any day.

Does anyone here have any story to tell me how you,engineers break into Investment Banking? I've been trying really hard since I graduated with aerospace engineering degree.

Thank you in advance.

When you guys are done with your maths pissing contest and physics envy maybe a few of you would be so generous as to comment a bit more on the OP's concerns...

Most of us already did, Relinquis. How have you contributed?

IP, i acknowledged your earlier contribution, that's why i said "a bit more".

i don't see how the tangent of how all of you guys are mathematically inferior to physics and maths graduate students contributes to knowing about engineering related careers. my contribution is to point that out.

I thought my post was clear.

I'm amped on this thread big time. Diggining the shit talking and "bro-graming" speak. Keep it up.

I am a petroleum engineer working in Australia. You can't beat the lifestyle, great pay, great hours, great scenery! As for the whole glass ceiling it really is up to the individual and is not much different to finance. If you are happy going down the technical role you will be on a package of 200,000 after 10+ years, but I imagine the same would be said if you had 10+ years of being an analyst only. The typically career progression is either using an MBA to management (when that happens you are typically not cast as a petroleum engine anymore, which makes the salary statistics looks silly), or you have a family and go consulting due to the much better hours and better pay. Or you just get to old age and semi retire to Thailand while still retaining you $3000 a day consulting fee while working remotely from the beach. As for the management career path, it's not always as lucrative as finance, but if you are smart, there really isn't much of a salary cap to speak of.

hahahaha, I see that this thread has slowly but surely devolved into something out of Bizarro World. Still trying to piece together how Nash equilibrium came into play. Also, computer science is not engineering.

Studying engineering was a mistake. Half the stuff was just made up. I mean, I guess it helps to build some character by undergoing class after class that is brutally competitive and insanely intense, but it's not the greatest choice unless you genuinely enjoy it and don't mind venturing off to like the middle of the Boondocks after graduation and spending your hours tinkering with all sorts of wacky machinery.

Recruiting for engineering is a lot different than I expected. The general or program specific ranking does not seem to matter, rather it's all about the school's location. In the oil industry specifically, state schools in and around Texas are king. Most of the new hires in my company come from Texas Tech, Texas A&M, UT, LSU, and OU.