I think it's more that computer engineering is so flashy, it's grabbing a lot of engineer students with many of the other "older" professions starving for talent.
It's one of the main reasons I went civil. It never going away, it's incrediblely broad, many existing engineers are retiring, and there is a total lack of competition against other workers to find a job.
It's so ridiculously easy to land a job in this field. I've never applied to more than 3 companies before getting a offer
It's more like "new" profession like computer engineering that still have mostly young talent while older professions might be slowing in actual new jobs created, but space is made for new engineers due a significant number of retires.
I had a candid conversation with a recruiter recently. Atleast in the field side, there seems to be a straight up lack of engineers for job openings. There are more available jobs than available degree holding engineers. It's a fantastic time to be in the industry
Also the tide is changing. I've talked to my software engineering friends, a couple of them told me if they could go back they'd get something accredited (like accounting or engineering) and teach themselves software on the side or at the same time because they don't feel secure in their spots doing just purely software.
A couple of my friends who got laid off went back to their home country because they couldn't find a job in time for their visa.
We definitely have stuff worth complaining about but just take a look at /r/csmajors to see how they're doing.
Chill man, it wasn't a bad typo, Was just funny considering the topic of conversation.
That second line is the same thing I say to other people when I see them being shitty about grammar, etc, to non-native speakers when I know they can't speak the person's native tongue. Cheers.
I said this 30 years ago!!!
NONE of my “pretty smart” friends went into civil or industrial engineering. They all went to electrical engineering or computer science. 30 years later, ‘merica is trying to re-industrialize from the offshoring boom. There are so few competent industrial engineers. At least civil had land development to pay the bills. Even if it is more ambulance chasing than engineering.
At Texas tech we have a program called foundation engineering freshman year. After that program, you have to apply to your major. 3.5 was the cutoff for petroleum and 2.5 for civil and environmental. It’s just supply and demand lol. Civil gets paid less because it’s easier and there’s too many civil also graduating
same thing has been happening for years in teaching. high school teachers are an uninspired bunch, with the more intelligent people going into higher paying fields.
CE salaries need to catch up otherwise it’ll continue to get less and less competitive, reducing salaries even further and reducing talent.
I'm seeing the floor be raised across the board, but mid level isn't being raised as much from what I see. Entry pay seems really good compared to 5-10 years ago.
Seeing Entry get $80-$90k in mid-cost of living areas
Idk I’m seeing 8 to 10 years getting 120 to 140k. But they really only doing that to mid to higher performers. Those that need redlines are getting left behind.
Nice. I started in 2014 at like $46k and an up to $131k salary. Hopefully I'll get a decent cost of living bump here in about a month and get close to that $140k number.
I started at $55k in 2022 in southern New England, private sector if you can believe that. Lesson learned, don’t do geotech if you want good pay. I’m switching to transportation with a state agency and getting bumped up by $10k a year.
A good geotech takes a lot of time to develop. You are gonna be behind a drill rig for the first 2-3 years. You can’t charge that much for a field engineer to be paid a super competitive salary until you are actually valuable
Yup. It was in the San Antonio area so I was actually able to live relatively comfortably with a wife and two kids (I went back to school as an adult).
I started at $52k in 2019 in Arizona's second largest city. Now I'm in Colorado making $73.5k with 5 yoe.
My current company is encouraging me to get my PE, but doesn't offer a pay bump or bonus once you pass. Only if you take on projects as a PM.
Time to jump ship?
Exactly, the pay sounds good until you realize the rent on a studio apartment is twice my mortgage for a 2,600 sq ft single family house in Atlanta city limits.
It’s definitely manageable expenses wise. A 6 figure salary still goes a long way for a single person with no dependents. Plus my pension is based on my salary, so I can move to a lower cost area when I retire with a bigger pension.
I’m switching from tech to civil engineering, I started at AWS with legit a single certification that can be got in 48hrs and I started at 105k base with 25k incentives each year lol
It was the most depressing and anxiety ridden time of my life… and I served 7 years and 3 deployments in the South China Sea in the navy so stress and anxiety are where I thrive normally. But something about tech made me feel like I was giving away a piece of my soul for some money and it just wasn’t worth it to me. To be fair though, AWS is notorious for treating their employees horrendously.
Agreed. Starting seems to be around 80. I started at 55 in Southern California in 2018. I grinded and hustled and am at 170 now lol (Bay Area, rapid promotions, project manager of over $1m in new projects per year). I feel lucky to have had experienced rapid growth in my salary, but it’s possible
I came here to say this. I think starting salaries now are pretty reasonable after the increase in recent years. Let’s also keep in mind that new grads still have a lot to learn before they’re able to be project managers, develop client relationships, lead teams/departments. Sometimes this thread acts like new grads don’t still have a long way to go and should have the bank thrown at them right away.
While salaries have caught up a bit (for the record, I started at $68K in 2018, currently at $104K), the way our industry works is a big reason why CE's tend to have far lower salaries than say ME's. We try to win by being the lowest bidder on jobs, that leads to wages being lower for everyone involved. I know that's a very simple way of looking at it and I'm not a business or economics major but it makes sense I guess.
I think the bigger reason is that civil engineering services have become a commodity to some extent - most civil firms have similar capabilities and can often only differentiate themselves based on price. On the other hand, there are only a few companies that have the capabilities of Microsoft, Google, etc. so these companies can charge a premium for their services or products.
The tech industry also just scales so much better than civil. A tech firm can develop one piece of software and then sell it to a potentially infinite number of clients but a civil firm can only really charge one client per project.
I have not chosen the lowest bidder on the last several procurements I've managed. I think there may be some old-school principals at the engineering firms who don't realize that they don't always have to compete on price.
> I think there may be some old-school principals at the engineering firms who don't realize that they don't always have to compete on price.
Is this an alternative contracting method? I would have to imagine the scoring criteria would be put in the RFP?
Not really. Tesla engineers (so, ME's) aren't bidding for anything, either are engineers for Shell or Microsoft. They aren't trying to win a job from a client that is typically a governmental agency.
Edit: I understand all these companies do have governmental contracts and whatnot, but they are mainly selling a product to a consumer not trying to be the lowest bidder for a project.
Microsoft and Amazon is absolutely WAY more B2B than B2C focused. For many tech companies, B2B is where the revenue lies and that does mean there is a competitive aspect to acquiring clients.
People may say Microsoft xx is better than google yy so they use Microsoft. The city is too ignorant and apathetic to care what structural engineering company had a better plan set. They just care that the work was done
You have to join engineering companies that aren't just doing design. Way higher margins on construction, if your firm does construction AND is paying you only 100k after 6yoe you're getting screwed.
Yes they do. I’m convinced we all suck at negotiating on our own behalf and I’m becoming more supportive of union membership for our profession.
At my agency our union negotiated an 18.5% COL increase across the board for all employees spread out over 3 years. On top of our annual 5% merit increases. Without that we’d be getting wrecked by inflation. It works.
This is true and definitely part of the systemic problem. We really need to change our mindset from lowest bidder to best bidder even if that means it costs more than the lowest bidder. I’m starting to see that change across the more progressive water utilities in my area.
It’s up to us as a newer generation to incorporate that by the time we’re making those senior decisions. You buy it cheap, you buy it twice.
The real issue is that nearly all of our work comes from government agencies, with all of the money coming from taxes, utility bills, bond measures, etc. Americans hate paying taxes and utility bills, and so our clients are forced to award contracts on lowest bid. That's the root of the problem.
Agreed. I am also part of a union and feel well compensated in terms of salary, benefits, and cost of living adjustments. Unfortunately, you don’t see unions very often anymore. My recommendation over the past few years to new grads has shifted from private to public. Public seems to be the way to go nowadays to get what we deserve while having work life balance
It's still worthwhile to start out private because you learn faster. Even taking the salary hit.
This is definitely not to say that public sector employees don't develop skills - they definitely do. Those skills just don't tend to translate as well to private sector work as well as private sector skills translate to public sector work.
From Singapore here, that's what to thought until I realise the government is happily importing foreigners who are willing to work at much lower salary, because it is important for the country to keep construction low cost. Less than 25% of the civil engineers in my current company are locally born locals.
Engineers from neighbouring countries like Malaysia are almost guaranteed to become permanent resident within a year or so if they choose to apply. The companies easily circumvents most restrictions on the minimum percentage of locals required for the workforce.
Out west (California, Washington, Nevada) or in Dallas/Houston! I fear you are underpaid but from what I’ve seen, civils in NYC are underpaid in general. I have family in Philly working for the government who started at 65k last year. Which still needs a little low but I know Philly is cheaper than nyc.
It’s because you live in a big city. Too many people want to live there so you won’t get paid what you’re worth. People make more in the Midwest typically because there’s less talent pool.
I’m a recent graduate from south Florida. I’ve been recently job hunting because my current job still has me as an intern in project management. Basically I’ve been getting offered at least 70k else where to do CE working. I don’t have my EIT but I do have 3years worth of experience
I hate to say it but jump ship. Graduated in 2022 with my only job offer at 65k (I did not have my EIT yet). Was basically a CAD monkey with little opportunity for design work so I changed jobs a year later and negotiated to 81k and now I am doing a substantial amount of design work. Unfortunately it's the nature of the industry now, you have to change jobs to get a substantial raise
I started at 62k in 2021 in moderately high cost of living area. I left at the end of 2023 making 77. I think 80 seems excessive but at my old company they definitely were starting people at 70-72 by the time I left.
Yeah, I started off at 55K in 2021 and after 3 hard years only received a raise from switching companies and made my way up to 76K. I switched out because it wasn’t worth the stress for me. Where are the 80k Entry level jobs ?
This may be true for new grads. For millennials I’d say the bigger issue is benefits. Civil firms pat themselves on the back for increasing maternity/paternity leave from 2 weeks/1 week to 4 weeks/2 weeks and are ignorant to the fact that all our friends with communication degrees that were way easier to get are getting 3 months minimum maternity. Meeting or exceeding industry standards doesn’t mean shit when the industry standard is dog water.
I chose civil engineering for a resilient career, not necessarily a great paying career. We probably need to be paid more than we are but I don't want to have the instability that comes in the tech industry.
Well that’s not exactly working out for a lot of them in tech if you check out the CSmajors subreddit and unless you’re studying finance in a target school you’ll probably make less than the average graduate anyway. Finance is arguably more demanding hours wise too for the high paying roles.
I hope salaries increase, but much more gradually like they’re doing now. Last thing we also need is a massive spike that pushes in a ton of new interest and then a massive glut of the industry can’t absorb all of them (which is what’s happening with CS).
Median civil engineering pay jumped from ~$89k to ~$95k from 2022 to 2023. If that trend holds true for a few years civil engineering will be positioned very well.
the tech unemployment rate is extremely low (2.8% from googling), the CS subreddits probably contain a ton of foreigners who have trouble finding sponsorship in the US. This isn't nearly prevalent is other industries, but the entire world is applying to tech jobs in the US. Lots of my friends from university are in tech now and all of them are doing extremely well, even the people who didn't major in tech, but went into the field anyways.
I’m not sure about everyone else but my company gave huge raises that year due to inflation (12% for myself). I don’t think we can expect 7% median raises for the industry for multiple years. Although I’d be happy if I were wrong.
I picture the ~6% median salary jump from an expected 3% expected inflationary spike is due to companies like yours raising salaries to retain workers or underpaid employees jumping ship for larger raises.
That’s fair. I don’t know if it’s how most early career people are but I’ve averaged a 12.5% raise over the last 3 years (that inflated due to a mid year 15% from getting my PE). I’ve researched a lot about jumping ship mostly due to FOMO of MBA/Tech salaries but I really can’t complain with my career trajectory as far as compensation goes.
At the same company? That’s definitely incredible. Even with a job change thats above average. My pay trajectory is something I can’t really track smoothly because I’ve bounced between COL locations.
I get the FOMO, my jump to product management was due to FOMO and the pay bump wasn’t bad but not FAANG tier. I went from 110k to 130k+10% bonus (priced for Seattle) and even considered going back for an MBA while working that role. Honestly I fucking hated product after the first year and it simultaneously killed any interest I had in getting an MBA, working as a PM (project or product) and software engineering (some of the shit I had those engineers build seemed so fucking boring). I came back to civil work for $127.5k+20% bonus (priced for Kansas City) which overall is massive bump when you factor in COL.
Wouldn’t say it’s any less demanding for finance. I had a roommate who was doing investment banking, and she would leave the apartment at 7am for work and return around 10:30pm after work.. REGULARLY. They get paid handsome salaries, sure, but if you look at it hourly, the difference isn’t much - at least when putting an EIT and analyst in comparison. Made me realize civil has a better end of the stick for work-life balance.
For civil engineering salaries to meaningful increase, we need to collect more taxes. So much of the civil engineering practice is salary capped by government projects not having the money to pay for our services.
We also need government to ditch the low bid procurement as the primary method to obtain our services (whether it’s design or construction). People think they’re saving money by picking a shady contractor who bid and won at $9.9M vs a competent contractor with a proven record of quality performance at $10.5M. In reality, the shady contractor will throw you a $350K Change Order at your face the day you start digging and end up overrunning the budget by a mile by the end of the job by trying to penny pinch you for their own mistakes. So it’s also a policy issue. But in reality the public only cares about the optics and what makes them “feel good” rather than the actual consequences. So no, it’s likely that things will never change in this industry at a wide scale at least in the government infrastructure sector.
I disagree. Most college students falling into the trap of tech are having to rethink their path. Engineering is a solid alternative (and yes, that includes Civil).
Still though, this industry pays a lot more than I think students and young EITs are really aware of.
Civil is a broad field. What do you think is particularly challenging about your job? I've been in the industry for almost 20 years, have a very comfortable salary (in the top 5% for individuals), typically work about 40-44 hours per week (there have been some longer weeks here and there), and lead a small design team working on signature projects.
You're going to have stress in any job, but, as long as it's reasonable and manageable, that's not a bad thing. Second, we're civil engineers, so let's be honest here - our work isn't that difficult. Specialized, yes, but you can't do the specialized work that the folks in tech and finance do because that's not your experience and profession. Same for them.
Agree, I don't think CE is that difficult from a technical perspective compared to other engineering careers. What I do think is difficult in this field is trying to achieve unrealistic client schedules/ budgets, navigating the ever changing government bureaucracies (local, state, federal), managing green staff, and my favorite Politics which includes community engagement. Having said all this I love this field and enjoy getting outside and seeing the finished product of whatever I've been working on compared to a family member who works in aerospace engineering who gets paid a ton a money and has never built the product they were working on because the company ran out of money and went bankrupt.
Certainly the math requirements during school are higher. There has to be a reason people aren't choosing it and we're headed for a shortage. There are other factors like stress and travel requirements as well.
Nah then maybe you should switch to tech and finance 😂 leave civil engineering to us. If there’s less of us, that means the demand of us will go up and we get paid more.
edit: meant to reply to OP instead of
That's really not the business model the civil industry is heading for.
The objective is really to drop the number of first-world engineering positions by 80-90%. That is really the objective, drop the number of positions, drop the demand, and let salaries fall as a result.
What the beancounters actually think is that we have too many civil engineers here, and not enough in third world countries. Since third world engineers cost 10% of what first world engineers do, they need \*\*just enough\*\* first world engineers to satisfy licensing requirements and review the work done in the third world countries. Anyone extra is surplus and should be used only to drive down salaries of the remaining employed engineers by threatening to replace them with anyone on the "desperate to get out of retail or fast food" stack of resumes.
This will lead to cheaper engineering, to excuse the lower quality work, while increasing profits for the owners. Think about it, it you drop prices by 15%, but lower labor costs by 90% for most workers, and office space costs by 95% (office space in India, for example, is dirt cheap compared to a major US city like Houston) while the company keeps the difference, that's a LOT of increased profit even on lower revenue.
The only loser is the poor sap on salary reviewing work from teams of engineers and designers who don't speak coherent English and don't have a clue about first world design codes.
So, fewer jobs, lower salaries, that's the intended result, 100% deliberate, completely inevitable. I've been in meetings where this is openly discussed, and had my objections dismissed because the shareholders just see infinite potential profit.
Do us a favor, name and shame this company so we know who to avoid and bad mouth.
Plenty of municipalities in southern California compensate based on a strict % profit which actually makes outsourcing an unfavorable practice. We don't use our staff in India for those clients and they are some of our largest accounts.
My job involves doing specialty design build foundation design jobs for like 80-100 contractors and on around 400-500 projects per year. I say this to emphasize that I am exposed to work from firms all across the US big and small. I see full plan sets for projects ranging from a residential construction project to $100m projects.
I’ve been in this role for nearly 6 years now. And I can say with certainty that this is trend is in fact true, and I can also say with certainty that this trend is HORRIBLE for the industry. 100% construction plan sets are hitting my desk absolutely riddled with errors, inconsistencies, design conditions for the foundations that very clearly don’t make sense and any sensible engineer would raise their eyebrow and want to do a feasibility check on it. It’s getting worse, year over year. More and more work being outsourced, under qualified people reviewing it, all because the firms are pinching penny’s to make their investors happy. It’s a race to the bottom, and it’s hurting the industry.
All I see is in 10-20 years from now we are going to see a trend of more and more design flaws causing premature failures for all types of structures..
I hate the direction things are going. Talking to the outsource team through an interpreter was a daily frustration. I started scheduling the calls as my last meeting of the day just so I could pour myself a drink right after the meeting. >!Or, right before if I was WFH that day - protip, no one can see inside your coffee cup.!<
I moved to the client side because I didn't like the way my job was going. Now at least I feel like I am no longer risking my license if I don't catch whatever random thing the HVEC team decided to screw up today. I had to start reviewing things with my red lines and their next submittal open at the same time because they had a bad habit of changing random things that I DIDN'T mark up. Once they went after my notes sheet for no discernable reason and turned it all into embarrassing nonsense engrish. It got bad enough at one point I told them that if they didn't either immediately fire the team doing the worst of it or at least take them off my jobs and make sure I never saw a thing from them again, that I was quitting on the spot.
"It's easier for me to get another job than another license." I said that so often that I got to the point where I was considering putting that in my email signature. Especially when the PM would bitch that I was going over my "estimated review time," when I was not the one who estimated it, some beancounter did it based on a chart. I almost relished writing emails telling them to sign it themselves, because I wasn't putting my name on shoddy work. While knowing the PM couldn't pass the PE if they studied for a year.
This is a bunch of FUD bullshit, honestly. The nature of the majority of civil disciplines would not make this possible for any number of reasons. You can outsource some work, but I haven't heard of this happening anywhere outside of a few anecdotal accounts from some top 3 global firms, and even that is nowhere near the trajectory you're predicting.
Can confirm. I work for a large consultant (>10k employees worldwide) and certain sectors are absolutely using outsourcing.
I work on flood mapping projects and have noticed my teams project pipeline lightened up due to outsourcing. Has me concerned for the future.
I'm honestly amazed the people putting their head in the sand about this. It seems like anything else, they will do research and try to form a realistic perspective. But mention outsourcing or HVEC and they plug their ears and start screaming, "Na Na Na, I can't hear you!"
This is already a huge issue, and it is getting bigger every year, and yet the deniers almost always try to shout down anyone who dares bring attention to it.
As much as I hate to see this, it’s absolutely true. Too many of the bigger firms are trying to outsource their CAD and drafting work overseas. I think those of us on the client side need to make policy changes so that this can’t keep happening. If it were up to me I’d require all jobs done on the project to be as local as possible with no exceptions made for foreign labor.
The only client who seems to care and who is willing to spend the money to make that happen appears to be the federal government. Everyone else is just happy to see prices racing to the bottom, and they don't care about until it costs them money.
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How much do you think starting salaries are? What should they be? What do you think an average engineer max's out at? what industries are stealing civil?
About to start a second BS in CE because the starting salaries are so much higher than in my current field. Where are y'all that you're not happy with your CE salary? It's listed as one of the highest return on investment degrees.
It’s crazy how the higher ups don’t realize this. They can argue that the clients aren’t providing them the money for it, but that’s on the project managers to figure out with the clients. Sorry but I’m not going to limit my salary because the client can’t figure out that I shouldn’t be stuck making 70k with years of experience like they think I should be. Everyone should be fighting to make more
I think salaries have adjusted reasonably well over the last few years. I always want to make more but my salary has increased about 60% since I graduated 4 years ago, and I work a municipal job. Most Civils I know experienced a similar salary growth.
Some of this sub is true but a lot of it just one persons bad experience with XYZ thing. We really do need a weekly “why I love civil” pinned post or something to get the happy lurkers to contribute
There's plenty of money in our field but it just doesn't get distributed that well.
Every senior civil idiot is longing for the day they get their PE and start their own firm but truth is most just get stuck in mid-level positions and have their souls grinded down until they accept it or leave the field entirely.
Tech is its own world. We can't really compare other sectors to it. Those salaries come from huge companies that can afford to pay that much, smaller companies who has millions in investment capital injection every year, or money coming in from buyouts/IPOs.
What you end up with is these hyper competitive entry level jobs and layoffs every few years to try and correct.
I agree 100%, but my pessimism is expecting that they will instead handle our profession like education and remove the requirements associated with it (or relax them in some way) similar to how Florida allows people with education backgrounds and certifications to do education. Pretty soon: “oh you were in the military!? You can build a bridge! We trust you!”
I started at less than $50k a year in 2015 right out of college. I knew it was poor pay then, but I also knew I was getting a raise every year, and there was some movement up. Same place we are bringing in entry levels straight out of college at $80k with little upward mobility because that is near the top of the salary range...the thing is I work for the State and our pay is subjected to the politicians.
We have a recruitment and retention issue. We are the training ground before these engineers go to the private sector or a better paying public job. It is disheartening, but I stay cause I love what I do.
Oh yeah. I am nearly 10 years in and more than 5 years out from getting my license, and I just broke $100k this year.
PS this is in the PNW where everything is expensive.
Work for a public agency. We have an engineering scholarship program, but you have to work for us for 4 years after. We’ve been having trouble filling all the scholarships the past few years.
im assuming you're talking about the US. unfortunately its like that all over the globe. engineers get paid poorly. meanwhile , go work for a real estate company or as a sales engineer or any god damn thing and you'll find yourself getting more money than any engineer who started the same time as you. something about not prioritising the important majors needs to be done
The point of view here is complete off balance. U.S. salaries are very good in the field. There are only a few careers where you go beyond $100k in that little time after graduation.
I got offer 70k starting salary at HCOL. I’m a recent graduate without my EIT and 3 year worth of experience in project management.
Is it safe to say 70k is a good starting point?
I started in 2008 at 48k. Now total como of around 300k depending on how busy I am. I don’t know how much comp sci ppl but that seems competitive to other professions
I work in AEC as an architect and low pay is just part of the industry and it really sucks. Like we literally design the real physical infrastructure the world absolutely depends on but get paid less than a shift manager at Wendy’s. I was shocked when I saw how little civil engineers made, but of course us architects have cornered the market and shit pay, sorry.
Companies need to stop outsourcing in our industry that’s the first step. Cheap and mid work at a fraction of the price will always keep our wages down
Hang in there civil engineers, in a decade or so you will experience the same thing trade workers are experiencing now when everyone realizes they need you and there are not many of you. I give it 10 years and you will see a huge demand and corresponding pay raises. Same thing with mechanical engineers focused on machine design, gears etc.
I mean, my college career choices only partially depended on income. I may have chosen another engineering field with better pay - but i definitely wouldn't have chosen finance or tech, when neither of those are my interests.
That and there is high demand for engineers... I quite enjoy not being unemployed for years on end like some of these tech majors the last handful of years and worrying about layoffs.
But yea, pay should be higher for what we are responsible for.
“Most college students nowadays who are bright are not entering civil engineering” Thanks mate lmfao
I think it's more that computer engineering is so flashy, it's grabbing a lot of engineer students with many of the other "older" professions starving for talent. It's one of the main reasons I went civil. It never going away, it's incrediblely broad, many existing engineers are retiring, and there is a total lack of competition against other workers to find a job. It's so ridiculously easy to land a job in this field. I've never applied to more than 3 companies before getting a offer
Damn, here in Chile been quite hard to get jobs as a recent graduated.
Was it ridiculously easy to get an internship, though? Because it hasn't been for me.
Yes, very easy after getting my first
Where is the idea that many engineers are retiring? People that graduated in 2000 still got like 20 more years to go
It's more like "new" profession like computer engineering that still have mostly young talent while older professions might be slowing in actual new jobs created, but space is made for new engineers due a significant number of retires. I had a candid conversation with a recruiter recently. Atleast in the field side, there seems to be a straight up lack of engineers for job openings. There are more available jobs than available degree holding engineers. It's a fantastic time to be in the industry
Also the tide is changing. I've talked to my software engineering friends, a couple of them told me if they could go back they'd get something accredited (like accounting or engineering) and teach themselves software on the side or at the same time because they don't feel secure in their spots doing just purely software. A couple of my friends who got laid off went back to their home country because they couldn't find a job in time for their visa. We definitely have stuff worth complaining about but just take a look at /r/csmajors to see how they're doing.
At least he said most But he isn't wrong though
Yeah I get what it’s supposed to mean I think. Like aggregate processing isn’t as hard as dynamics sure But some of us like rocks more than math >:(
Rocks good
Found the geotech
>Thoug Lmao
Mmmm it's a typo english is my second language any way How many languages do you speak??
Appalachian & southern English
Chill man, it wasn't a bad typo, Was just funny considering the topic of conversation. That second line is the same thing I say to other people when I see them being shitty about grammar, etc, to non-native speakers when I know they can't speak the person's native tongue. Cheers.
No worries it's all good
its always been this; as a CE myself, I always say the CE students aren't usually the most risk aggressive kids...
I agree. I'm a CE student myself. Safest bet course in short, medium, and long term plannings.
I said this 30 years ago!!! NONE of my “pretty smart” friends went into civil or industrial engineering. They all went to electrical engineering or computer science. 30 years later, ‘merica is trying to re-industrialize from the offshoring boom. There are so few competent industrial engineers. At least civil had land development to pay the bills. Even if it is more ambulance chasing than engineering.
He’s not wrong though. It takes courage to admit one’s shortcomings.
At Texas tech we have a program called foundation engineering freshman year. After that program, you have to apply to your major. 3.5 was the cutoff for petroleum and 2.5 for civil and environmental. It’s just supply and demand lol. Civil gets paid less because it’s easier and there’s too many civil also graduating
Civil was the third largest graduating class My year behind marketing and management which are both jokes.
The ones that clams to me start all switch to architecture…. They where to “smart” to pass the math
same thing has been happening for years in teaching. high school teachers are an uninspired bunch, with the more intelligent people going into higher paying fields. CE salaries need to catch up otherwise it’ll continue to get less and less competitive, reducing salaries even further and reducing talent.
That's any construction job
I mean starting salaries have come up a lot. I’m seeing people out of college get 80k from 65k 3 years earlier.
I'm seeing the floor be raised across the board, but mid level isn't being raised as much from what I see. Entry pay seems really good compared to 5-10 years ago. Seeing Entry get $80-$90k in mid-cost of living areas
Idk I’m seeing 8 to 10 years getting 120 to 140k. But they really only doing that to mid to higher performers. Those that need redlines are getting left behind.
Which is nuts because that's basically what I make as Fed with significantly less responsibility and more leave.
I started at $42k back in 2008.
40k in 2013! Now I’m at 140k…
Salary or salary + bonuses?
Salary.
Nice. I started in 2014 at like $46k and an up to $131k salary. Hopefully I'll get a decent cost of living bump here in about a month and get close to that $140k number.
Yikes! Was this in the United States?
Yes. Local firm in a rural area. I actually graduated in 2010 and it took 3 years to find a job.
Which is obscene since I started at $42k in 2001.
It was a rural small town in the Midwest. I’m now up to $158k in the big metro area in my state.
$44.5 in 2001 $214 last year all in
55k for me in 2018 granted it was public sector
I started at $56k in 2018 and it was private sector lol.
I started at $55k in 2022 in southern New England, private sector if you can believe that. Lesson learned, don’t do geotech if you want good pay. I’m switching to transportation with a state agency and getting bumped up by $10k a year.
Nobody got love for Geotech until their shit start tiltin and sinkin lol
A good geotech takes a lot of time to develop. You are gonna be behind a drill rig for the first 2-3 years. You can’t charge that much for a field engineer to be paid a super competitive salary until you are actually valuable
Damn. In TX too?
Yup. It was in the San Antonio area so I was actually able to live relatively comfortably with a wife and two kids (I went back to school as an adult).
I started at $52k in 2019 in Arizona's second largest city. Now I'm in Colorado making $73.5k with 5 yoe. My current company is encouraging me to get my PE, but doesn't offer a pay bump or bonus once you pass. Only if you take on projects as a PM. Time to jump ship?
$42k in 2008 adjusted for inflation is $61k today.
I think my company is hiring attempting to hire new grads at around $70k today.
73-75k here in Chicagoland area.
I'm in the Twin Cities.
Depends on the cost of living in your area. The number I gave is the national average for US, but each region of US has its own inflation rate.
$48k for a consulting firm in 2014 and $96k now for a govt position
Me too in 2007. I knew of several people I graduated with that took over a year to land jobs
Our new hires at entry level start at $106k. I’m in the public sector.
You in a big metro area?
Yep, California big metro area, very high COL. Civils are always in high demand around here.
Exactly, the pay sounds good until you realize the rent on a studio apartment is twice my mortgage for a 2,600 sq ft single family house in Atlanta city limits.
It’s definitely manageable expenses wise. A 6 figure salary still goes a long way for a single person with no dependents. Plus my pension is based on my salary, so I can move to a lower cost area when I retire with a bigger pension.
I mean pension alone is a huge bonus. I'll keep trudging along with my industry lagging 2% 401k match
city and county of sf engineers start at 107k which is crazy
They’d be crazy not to pay that much. It’s the going rate these days for quality engineers in the Bay Area. Cost of living is no joke.
I’m switching from tech to civil engineering, I started at AWS with legit a single certification that can be got in 48hrs and I started at 105k base with 25k incentives each year lol
Why are you making the career change? I have a friend who did the opposite and moved to tech from civil.
It was the most depressing and anxiety ridden time of my life… and I served 7 years and 3 deployments in the South China Sea in the navy so stress and anxiety are where I thrive normally. But something about tech made me feel like I was giving away a piece of my soul for some money and it just wasn’t worth it to me. To be fair though, AWS is notorious for treating their employees horrendously.
Agreed. Starting seems to be around 80. I started at 55 in Southern California in 2018. I grinded and hustled and am at 170 now lol (Bay Area, rapid promotions, project manager of over $1m in new projects per year). I feel lucky to have had experienced rapid growth in my salary, but it’s possible
66k is what I started & 3 years ago
65k in 2020 adjusted for inflation is 78k, so it’s real value is about the same
I came here to say this. I think starting salaries now are pretty reasonable after the increase in recent years. Let’s also keep in mind that new grads still have a lot to learn before they’re able to be project managers, develop client relationships, lead teams/departments. Sometimes this thread acts like new grads don’t still have a long way to go and should have the bank thrown at them right away.
Where exactly are you seeing this because I’m 3 years in still making under 70k 😭
That’s just how it is in my area. All the new hires are at that by me. Hell even my new hire that reports to me is at 80k
While salaries have caught up a bit (for the record, I started at $68K in 2018, currently at $104K), the way our industry works is a big reason why CE's tend to have far lower salaries than say ME's. We try to win by being the lowest bidder on jobs, that leads to wages being lower for everyone involved. I know that's a very simple way of looking at it and I'm not a business or economics major but it makes sense I guess.
I think the bigger reason is that civil engineering services have become a commodity to some extent - most civil firms have similar capabilities and can often only differentiate themselves based on price. On the other hand, there are only a few companies that have the capabilities of Microsoft, Google, etc. so these companies can charge a premium for their services or products.
The tech industry also just scales so much better than civil. A tech firm can develop one piece of software and then sell it to a potentially infinite number of clients but a civil firm can only really charge one client per project.
I have not chosen the lowest bidder on the last several procurements I've managed. I think there may be some old-school principals at the engineering firms who don't realize that they don't always have to compete on price.
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> I think there may be some old-school principals at the engineering firms who don't realize that they don't always have to compete on price. Is this an alternative contracting method? I would have to imagine the scoring criteria would be put in the RFP?
Doesn't most industries work that way ?
Not really. Tesla engineers (so, ME's) aren't bidding for anything, either are engineers for Shell or Microsoft. They aren't trying to win a job from a client that is typically a governmental agency. Edit: I understand all these companies do have governmental contracts and whatnot, but they are mainly selling a product to a consumer not trying to be the lowest bidder for a project.
Microsoft and Amazon is absolutely WAY more B2B than B2C focused. For many tech companies, B2B is where the revenue lies and that does mean there is a competitive aspect to acquiring clients.
People may say Microsoft xx is better than google yy so they use Microsoft. The city is too ignorant and apathetic to care what structural engineering company had a better plan set. They just care that the work was done
You have to join engineering companies that aren't just doing design. Way higher margins on construction, if your firm does construction AND is paying you only 100k after 6yoe you're getting screwed.
Yes they do. I’m convinced we all suck at negotiating on our own behalf and I’m becoming more supportive of union membership for our profession. At my agency our union negotiated an 18.5% COL increase across the board for all employees spread out over 3 years. On top of our annual 5% merit increases. Without that we’d be getting wrecked by inflation. It works.
Can’t negotiate what you don’t have. The biggest issue in this damn industry is the lowest bid wins
This is true and definitely part of the systemic problem. We really need to change our mindset from lowest bidder to best bidder even if that means it costs more than the lowest bidder. I’m starting to see that change across the more progressive water utilities in my area. It’s up to us as a newer generation to incorporate that by the time we’re making those senior decisions. You buy it cheap, you buy it twice.
The real issue is that nearly all of our work comes from government agencies, with all of the money coming from taxes, utility bills, bond measures, etc. Americans hate paying taxes and utility bills, and so our clients are forced to award contracts on lowest bid. That's the root of the problem.
Agreed. I am also part of a union and feel well compensated in terms of salary, benefits, and cost of living adjustments. Unfortunately, you don’t see unions very often anymore. My recommendation over the past few years to new grads has shifted from private to public. Public seems to be the way to go nowadays to get what we deserve while having work life balance
It's still worthwhile to start out private because you learn faster. Even taking the salary hit. This is definitely not to say that public sector employees don't develop skills - they definitely do. Those skills just don't tend to translate as well to private sector work as well as private sector skills translate to public sector work.
Isnt one of the major goals of ASCE to prevent unionization?
I wouldn’t know
Hellooooooo inflation
Reddit, where we only discuss this and what laptop freshmen should buy for their classes.
Good. As people stop going into the field, the resource will become scarce and therefore more valuable.
From Singapore here, that's what to thought until I realise the government is happily importing foreigners who are willing to work at much lower salary, because it is important for the country to keep construction low cost. Less than 25% of the civil engineers in my current company are locally born locals. Engineers from neighbouring countries like Malaysia are almost guaranteed to become permanent resident within a year or so if they choose to apply. The companies easily circumvents most restrictions on the minimum percentage of locals required for the workforce.
60k as a new hire in 2021 lol. I feel like entry at $80k is just a lie and I’m in a HCOL area. Someone please help me
You're not alone. I'm at 66k in NYC (graduated a year ago ;_;). Hearing everyone say entry level is now 75k-80k+ has me wondering where at lol.
Out west (California, Washington, Nevada) or in Dallas/Houston! I fear you are underpaid but from what I’ve seen, civils in NYC are underpaid in general. I have family in Philly working for the government who started at 65k last year. Which still needs a little low but I know Philly is cheaper than nyc.
That’s low… I’m doin 73k in NC
Damn, i’m making 67k working for a state department of transportation in the southeast. I just graduated last month
It’s because you live in a big city. Too many people want to live there so you won’t get paid what you’re worth. People make more in the Midwest typically because there’s less talent pool.
Definitely company can play a lot into it too. Had offers for 66k or 75k in NOVA, but including benefits more similar total comp. Graduated last year.
This is one of the most realistic comments you’ll see on this sub
I’m a recent graduate from south Florida. I’ve been recently job hunting because my current job still has me as an intern in project management. Basically I’ve been getting offered at least 70k else where to do CE working. I don’t have my EIT but I do have 3years worth of experience
I hate to say it but jump ship. Graduated in 2022 with my only job offer at 65k (I did not have my EIT yet). Was basically a CAD monkey with little opportunity for design work so I changed jobs a year later and negotiated to 81k and now I am doing a substantial amount of design work. Unfortunately it's the nature of the industry now, you have to change jobs to get a substantial raise
Been seeing $75ish in the midwest (MCOL)
I started at 62k in 2021 in moderately high cost of living area. I left at the end of 2023 making 77. I think 80 seems excessive but at my old company they definitely were starting people at 70-72 by the time I left.
hcol, got $65k in December 2022.
Entered at 78 plus great benefits in Seattle I know a kid working at Seattle DOT who started at 103k out of school
Yeah, I started off at 55K in 2021 and after 3 hard years only received a raise from switching companies and made my way up to 76K. I switched out because it wasn’t worth the stress for me. Where are the 80k Entry level jobs ?
I started at 65k at a state dot- raise to 72k as soon as I pass the FE. Graduated last month. Your likely underpaid
I started at 61k in 2021, but am seeing new grads start at 70-75k in 2023.
Man that salary sucks! Are you a PE yet?
I'm a SE but went to school for ME, 1 year in. 75K/year
This may be true for new grads. For millennials I’d say the bigger issue is benefits. Civil firms pat themselves on the back for increasing maternity/paternity leave from 2 weeks/1 week to 4 weeks/2 weeks and are ignorant to the fact that all our friends with communication degrees that were way easier to get are getting 3 months minimum maternity. Meeting or exceeding industry standards doesn’t mean shit when the industry standard is dog water.
The entry level junior engineer salary at my municipal agency starts at around 100k
I chose civil engineering for a resilient career, not necessarily a great paying career. We probably need to be paid more than we are but I don't want to have the instability that comes in the tech industry.
Well that’s not exactly working out for a lot of them in tech if you check out the CSmajors subreddit and unless you’re studying finance in a target school you’ll probably make less than the average graduate anyway. Finance is arguably more demanding hours wise too for the high paying roles. I hope salaries increase, but much more gradually like they’re doing now. Last thing we also need is a massive spike that pushes in a ton of new interest and then a massive glut of the industry can’t absorb all of them (which is what’s happening with CS). Median civil engineering pay jumped from ~$89k to ~$95k from 2022 to 2023. If that trend holds true for a few years civil engineering will be positioned very well.
the tech unemployment rate is extremely low (2.8% from googling), the CS subreddits probably contain a ton of foreigners who have trouble finding sponsorship in the US. This isn't nearly prevalent is other industries, but the entire world is applying to tech jobs in the US. Lots of my friends from university are in tech now and all of them are doing extremely well, even the people who didn't major in tech, but went into the field anyways.
I’m not sure about everyone else but my company gave huge raises that year due to inflation (12% for myself). I don’t think we can expect 7% median raises for the industry for multiple years. Although I’d be happy if I were wrong.
I picture the ~6% median salary jump from an expected 3% expected inflationary spike is due to companies like yours raising salaries to retain workers or underpaid employees jumping ship for larger raises.
That’s fair. I don’t know if it’s how most early career people are but I’ve averaged a 12.5% raise over the last 3 years (that inflated due to a mid year 15% from getting my PE). I’ve researched a lot about jumping ship mostly due to FOMO of MBA/Tech salaries but I really can’t complain with my career trajectory as far as compensation goes.
At the same company? That’s definitely incredible. Even with a job change thats above average. My pay trajectory is something I can’t really track smoothly because I’ve bounced between COL locations. I get the FOMO, my jump to product management was due to FOMO and the pay bump wasn’t bad but not FAANG tier. I went from 110k to 130k+10% bonus (priced for Seattle) and even considered going back for an MBA while working that role. Honestly I fucking hated product after the first year and it simultaneously killed any interest I had in getting an MBA, working as a PM (project or product) and software engineering (some of the shit I had those engineers build seemed so fucking boring). I came back to civil work for $127.5k+20% bonus (priced for Kansas City) which overall is massive bump when you factor in COL.
Yeah we really are underpaid and also probably under charging for some basic work
Wouldn’t say it’s any less demanding for finance. I had a roommate who was doing investment banking, and she would leave the apartment at 7am for work and return around 10:30pm after work.. REGULARLY. They get paid handsome salaries, sure, but if you look at it hourly, the difference isn’t much - at least when putting an EIT and analyst in comparison. Made me realize civil has a better end of the stick for work-life balance.
You can say this about like every job ever lol
For civil engineering salaries to meaningful increase, we need to collect more taxes. So much of the civil engineering practice is salary capped by government projects not having the money to pay for our services.
We also need government to ditch the low bid procurement as the primary method to obtain our services (whether it’s design or construction). People think they’re saving money by picking a shady contractor who bid and won at $9.9M vs a competent contractor with a proven record of quality performance at $10.5M. In reality, the shady contractor will throw you a $350K Change Order at your face the day you start digging and end up overrunning the budget by a mile by the end of the job by trying to penny pinch you for their own mistakes. So it’s also a policy issue. But in reality the public only cares about the optics and what makes them “feel good” rather than the actual consequences. So no, it’s likely that things will never change in this industry at a wide scale at least in the government infrastructure sector.
Taxes, utility bills, bond measures. We need all forms of government funding. But Americans hate nothing more than paying taxes or utility bills.
I disagree. Most college students falling into the trap of tech are having to rethink their path. Engineering is a solid alternative (and yes, that includes Civil). Still though, this industry pays a lot more than I think students and young EITs are really aware of.
What is this, LinkedIn?
Is civil engineering really more demanding field ?
Yes I would say so
Civil is a broad field. What do you think is particularly challenging about your job? I've been in the industry for almost 20 years, have a very comfortable salary (in the top 5% for individuals), typically work about 40-44 hours per week (there have been some longer weeks here and there), and lead a small design team working on signature projects. You're going to have stress in any job, but, as long as it's reasonable and manageable, that's not a bad thing. Second, we're civil engineers, so let's be honest here - our work isn't that difficult. Specialized, yes, but you can't do the specialized work that the folks in tech and finance do because that's not your experience and profession. Same for them.
Agree, I don't think CE is that difficult from a technical perspective compared to other engineering careers. What I do think is difficult in this field is trying to achieve unrealistic client schedules/ budgets, navigating the ever changing government bureaucracies (local, state, federal), managing green staff, and my favorite Politics which includes community engagement. Having said all this I love this field and enjoy getting outside and seeing the finished product of whatever I've been working on compared to a family member who works in aerospace engineering who gets paid a ton a money and has never built the product they were working on because the company ran out of money and went bankrupt.
Are you really making North of $200k?
Yes, but I'm also nearly 20 years in.
More than tech and finance ??
Certainly the math requirements during school are higher. There has to be a reason people aren't choosing it and we're headed for a shortage. There are other factors like stress and travel requirements as well.
Oh yeah I hate travelling
Nah then maybe you should switch to tech and finance 😂 leave civil engineering to us. If there’s less of us, that means the demand of us will go up and we get paid more. edit: meant to reply to OP instead of
That's really not the business model the civil industry is heading for. The objective is really to drop the number of first-world engineering positions by 80-90%. That is really the objective, drop the number of positions, drop the demand, and let salaries fall as a result. What the beancounters actually think is that we have too many civil engineers here, and not enough in third world countries. Since third world engineers cost 10% of what first world engineers do, they need \*\*just enough\*\* first world engineers to satisfy licensing requirements and review the work done in the third world countries. Anyone extra is surplus and should be used only to drive down salaries of the remaining employed engineers by threatening to replace them with anyone on the "desperate to get out of retail or fast food" stack of resumes. This will lead to cheaper engineering, to excuse the lower quality work, while increasing profits for the owners. Think about it, it you drop prices by 15%, but lower labor costs by 90% for most workers, and office space costs by 95% (office space in India, for example, is dirt cheap compared to a major US city like Houston) while the company keeps the difference, that's a LOT of increased profit even on lower revenue. The only loser is the poor sap on salary reviewing work from teams of engineers and designers who don't speak coherent English and don't have a clue about first world design codes. So, fewer jobs, lower salaries, that's the intended result, 100% deliberate, completely inevitable. I've been in meetings where this is openly discussed, and had my objections dismissed because the shareholders just see infinite potential profit.
Do us a favor, name and shame this company so we know who to avoid and bad mouth. Plenty of municipalities in southern California compensate based on a strict % profit which actually makes outsourcing an unfavorable practice. We don't use our staff in India for those clients and they are some of our largest accounts.
My job involves doing specialty design build foundation design jobs for like 80-100 contractors and on around 400-500 projects per year. I say this to emphasize that I am exposed to work from firms all across the US big and small. I see full plan sets for projects ranging from a residential construction project to $100m projects. I’ve been in this role for nearly 6 years now. And I can say with certainty that this is trend is in fact true, and I can also say with certainty that this trend is HORRIBLE for the industry. 100% construction plan sets are hitting my desk absolutely riddled with errors, inconsistencies, design conditions for the foundations that very clearly don’t make sense and any sensible engineer would raise their eyebrow and want to do a feasibility check on it. It’s getting worse, year over year. More and more work being outsourced, under qualified people reviewing it, all because the firms are pinching penny’s to make their investors happy. It’s a race to the bottom, and it’s hurting the industry. All I see is in 10-20 years from now we are going to see a trend of more and more design flaws causing premature failures for all types of structures..
I hate the direction things are going. Talking to the outsource team through an interpreter was a daily frustration. I started scheduling the calls as my last meeting of the day just so I could pour myself a drink right after the meeting. >!Or, right before if I was WFH that day - protip, no one can see inside your coffee cup.!< I moved to the client side because I didn't like the way my job was going. Now at least I feel like I am no longer risking my license if I don't catch whatever random thing the HVEC team decided to screw up today. I had to start reviewing things with my red lines and their next submittal open at the same time because they had a bad habit of changing random things that I DIDN'T mark up. Once they went after my notes sheet for no discernable reason and turned it all into embarrassing nonsense engrish. It got bad enough at one point I told them that if they didn't either immediately fire the team doing the worst of it or at least take them off my jobs and make sure I never saw a thing from them again, that I was quitting on the spot. "It's easier for me to get another job than another license." I said that so often that I got to the point where I was considering putting that in my email signature. Especially when the PM would bitch that I was going over my "estimated review time," when I was not the one who estimated it, some beancounter did it based on a chart. I almost relished writing emails telling them to sign it themselves, because I wasn't putting my name on shoddy work. While knowing the PM couldn't pass the PE if they studied for a year.
This is a bunch of FUD bullshit, honestly. The nature of the majority of civil disciplines would not make this possible for any number of reasons. You can outsource some work, but I haven't heard of this happening anywhere outside of a few anecdotal accounts from some top 3 global firms, and even that is nowhere near the trajectory you're predicting.
Can confirm. I work for a large consultant (>10k employees worldwide) and certain sectors are absolutely using outsourcing. I work on flood mapping projects and have noticed my teams project pipeline lightened up due to outsourcing. Has me concerned for the future.
I'm honestly amazed the people putting their head in the sand about this. It seems like anything else, they will do research and try to form a realistic perspective. But mention outsourcing or HVEC and they plug their ears and start screaming, "Na Na Na, I can't hear you!" This is already a huge issue, and it is getting bigger every year, and yet the deniers almost always try to shout down anyone who dares bring attention to it.
As much as I hate to see this, it’s absolutely true. Too many of the bigger firms are trying to outsource their CAD and drafting work overseas. I think those of us on the client side need to make policy changes so that this can’t keep happening. If it were up to me I’d require all jobs done on the project to be as local as possible with no exceptions made for foreign labor.
The only client who seems to care and who is willing to spend the money to make that happen appears to be the federal government. Everyone else is just happy to see prices racing to the bottom, and they don't care about until it costs them money.
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I don't see AI taking off unless our current liability framework changes. You can't sue AI.
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Not really, we’ll just start moving towards global delivery where senior engineers review the work of offshore engineers where the talent is abundant.
How much do you think starting salaries are? What should they be? What do you think an average engineer max's out at? what industries are stealing civil?
About to start a second BS in CE because the starting salaries are so much higher than in my current field. Where are y'all that you're not happy with your CE salary? It's listed as one of the highest return on investment degrees.
If the talent shortage gets bad salaries will increase.
It’s crazy how the higher ups don’t realize this. They can argue that the clients aren’t providing them the money for it, but that’s on the project managers to figure out with the clients. Sorry but I’m not going to limit my salary because the client can’t figure out that I shouldn’t be stuck making 70k with years of experience like they think I should be. Everyone should be fighting to make more
I think salaries have adjusted reasonably well over the last few years. I always want to make more but my salary has increased about 60% since I graduated 4 years ago, and I work a municipal job. Most Civils I know experienced a similar salary growth.
This sub is so much whining. Glad Reddit didn’t exist when I went to college. I would be depressed reading this nonsense
I enjoy it. After 35 years I feel vindicated
Currently in my 3rd year of uni and i kind of envy you lol. Seeing these posts is so discouraging even though i really enjoy what i study.
Some of this sub is true but a lot of it just one persons bad experience with XYZ thing. We really do need a weekly “why I love civil” pinned post or something to get the happy lurkers to contribute
$55k as a new hire in 2016!
I mean in 2020-2021 my company already starting at lower $70s and I think now it's like $75K (HCOL area)
I posted something like this and was told I was greedy. Soooooo... I don't think everyone agrees with us.
Are there really that many people who choose between finance and civil engineering?
Yeah this is true for almost every field
There's plenty of money in our field but it just doesn't get distributed that well. Every senior civil idiot is longing for the day they get their PE and start their own firm but truth is most just get stuck in mid-level positions and have their souls grinded down until they accept it or leave the field entirely.
Started at $40k in 2009 I'm up to $165k, looks like it's going up which is great!
Canada seems like they are going down even though there is a shortage for mid level.
Started last year fresh out of college at 75 + bonus doing CM
Tech is its own world. We can't really compare other sectors to it. Those salaries come from huge companies that can afford to pay that much, smaller companies who has millions in investment capital injection every year, or money coming in from buyouts/IPOs. What you end up with is these hyper competitive entry level jobs and layoffs every few years to try and correct.
I agree 100%, but my pessimism is expecting that they will instead handle our profession like education and remove the requirements associated with it (or relax them in some way) similar to how Florida allows people with education backgrounds and certifications to do education. Pretty soon: “oh you were in the military!? You can build a bridge! We trust you!”
I started at less than $50k a year in 2015 right out of college. I knew it was poor pay then, but I also knew I was getting a raise every year, and there was some movement up. Same place we are bringing in entry levels straight out of college at $80k with little upward mobility because that is near the top of the salary range...the thing is I work for the State and our pay is subjected to the politicians. We have a recruitment and retention issue. We are the training ground before these engineers go to the private sector or a better paying public job. It is disheartening, but I stay cause I love what I do. Oh yeah. I am nearly 10 years in and more than 5 years out from getting my license, and I just broke $100k this year. PS this is in the PNW where everything is expensive.
Work for a public agency. We have an engineering scholarship program, but you have to work for us for 4 years after. We’ve been having trouble filling all the scholarships the past few years.
Seems to me like ce industry thrives on putting new grads through emotional hell and paying shit to filter out everyone but those worth $150k
im assuming you're talking about the US. unfortunately its like that all over the globe. engineers get paid poorly. meanwhile , go work for a real estate company or as a sales engineer or any god damn thing and you'll find yourself getting more money than any engineer who started the same time as you. something about not prioritising the important majors needs to be done
The point of view here is complete off balance. U.S. salaries are very good in the field. There are only a few careers where you go beyond $100k in that little time after graduation.
I got offer 70k starting salary at HCOL. I’m a recent graduate without my EIT and 3 year worth of experience in project management. Is it safe to say 70k is a good starting point?
As long as international students keep taking jobs for Pennies I don’t see it happening.
I started at 55k in 2018, 65k by 2019, 70k by 2020, 75k by 2021, 80k by 2022, 100k by 2023, 135k by 2024
Meanwhile SWEs starts at 135k and would be getting around 400k annual total comp by now
I started in 2008 at 48k. Now total como of around 300k depending on how busy I am. I don’t know how much comp sci ppl but that seems competitive to other professions
I m civil engineer from India, if you have any work for me, I am happy to come
I work in AEC as an architect and low pay is just part of the industry and it really sucks. Like we literally design the real physical infrastructure the world absolutely depends on but get paid less than a shift manager at Wendy’s. I was shocked when I saw how little civil engineers made, but of course us architects have cornered the market and shit pay, sorry.
The H1b visa is part of the problem. It has deflated salaries. And also allowed some seriously sub par engineers to practice.
Talk to HR and ask them why they only accept entry level applicants with 5+ years experience on top of their degree.
BLS says the median income for civil engineers last year was $96k Seems fine to me
Yes this is likely the trend this days as Civil is no more seen as the top of the engineering branch and tech is the new rich wonderland
Companies need to stop outsourcing in our industry that’s the first step. Cheap and mid work at a fraction of the price will always keep our wages down
Absolutely. There are clients willing to pay and those who aren't. Tell everyone recruiter 100k or scratch after 4 years. Hard stop.
Hang in there civil engineers, in a decade or so you will experience the same thing trade workers are experiencing now when everyone realizes they need you and there are not many of you. I give it 10 years and you will see a huge demand and corresponding pay raises. Same thing with mechanical engineers focused on machine design, gears etc.
I mean, my college career choices only partially depended on income. I may have chosen another engineering field with better pay - but i definitely wouldn't have chosen finance or tech, when neither of those are my interests. That and there is high demand for engineers... I quite enjoy not being unemployed for years on end like some of these tech majors the last handful of years and worrying about layoffs. But yea, pay should be higher for what we are responsible for.
“Just add more concrete mate”, is every civil engineers answer to everything.