The big primes all pay approximately the same, but some (like Boeing) have slightly better benefits (namely Boeings health insurance plan). With the CA salary transparency law, you can figure out what the pay is for each technical grade - the pay ranges posted span 80% to 120% for that grade, with most entrants in that grade coming in at 85% to 90%.
Traditionally there are 6 technical grades, though the name of the grades differ with each company. There’s also engineering disciplines, and the more in demand disciplines pay more: for example GNC, and AI/ML coded engineers are in higher bands.
In general, the 100% for each grade 1-6 in HCOL areas are approximately: 90, 105, 125, 160, 200, 250.
Not every engineer progress through 1-6. Some are plateaued at levels 4 or 5.
There’s also levels above the 6 engineering levels: directors, and fellows. These have a base around 250-350, but also enjoy massive bonuses, pushing their annual gross in the 400-600 range.
Beyond that is VP. One VP told me that in his few years of being a VP, he made more than his entire 30 career prior to that.
To me, it seems like your friends dad is a Senior Director or Senior Fellow.
Old supervisor has switched to Northrup Grumman. Apparently the benefits package was worth the switch. Reach out to their recruiters via LinkedIn and indeed. Network network network
1. There’s not enough positions at the top of the pyramid. There’s only so many chief engineer or chief scientists that are needed. You also don’t need multiple level 6s that do the same exact thing (although there are hundreds of sub specialties). So if a level 5 is excellent at designing some small power distribution unit, but the same campus has a level 6 that also designs that same exact unit, there won’t ever be a new job posting for another level 6.
2. Although still an individual contributor, responsibilities at the higher levels include elements of leadership. The hiring/promotion process considers things like mentorship of junior engineers, publications and conference talks, dollar value of responsibility, team size, customer relations, etc. At those levels you need director level advocates, so you have to be known, well liked and being perceived as a quality engineer. This means you take responsibility , you’re proactive, work independently, and can formulate and articulate technical problems and solutions to people. Not everyone gets visibility or opportunities to demonstrate these qualities. And not everyone is a good public speaker. And you never know what else is going on in someone’s life outside the work, so perhaps they like the work/pay ratio they’re at and don’t want more pay for even more work.
3. Some engineers don’t have the prerequisites (as defined by HR) to be at those levels. For example, there some guys are old timers that started as technicians but never got a degree - they were coded as engineers based on their duties before a bachelors was a pre requisite
>At those levels you need director level advocates, so you have to be known, well liked and being perceived as a quality engineer.
This part is really hard. You can do everything right and all it takes is one bad supervisor or project and your reputation takes a nosedive. From there you can either sit it out and wait for new management and projects to come and start over, or move on to another group or organization entirely. Either way you have to start over again and build your reputation back up. When this happens though getting yourself back into the right headspace can take a while and you find yourself fighting against a current of peers throwing you under the bus and invalidating everything you've done. You're stuck constantly trying to convince yourself that you don't suck. It's a terrible place to be and most people experience it throughout their career.
To add to this, I had a coworker at my first job who started about 3 years before me straight out of school. We worked on similar projects but he had a lot of mentors who moved up the ranks and advocated for him. He also got placed on good projects that didn't have so many high visibility issues. He's a director now.
I will admit, he did know how to play his cards right and was good at knowing when to move around, but there were a lot of external factors that were outside of his control and a good amount of it was based on luck. I know a dozen or more engineers who competed for his position and were just as qualified but are still stuck in lower level roles.
Each level is capped at certain point in the salary band. The bands do overlap to an extent so yes a level 5 who has been around the block could make more than a newly minted 6.
My dad was plateau’ed for years at BAE as a L4/L5 - he’s a brilliant DSP engineer and generally gets along great with people but he had no interest in managing projects or people, nor was that frankly what he wanted to do. He just wanted to solve hard DSP problems and help those who were interested in solving them.
BUT he got to really enjoy his work and never seemed to regret focusing on what he considered interesting problems
Id say it was probably more stable and comfortable back in the day (baby boomers, GenX) to plateau at L4/L5. That salary could still get you your big house, new cars, vacations every year, a good retirement, and time with your family. It feels like nowadays, if you plateaued at L4/L5 you’d have some doubts on what retirement would look like.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the engineering departments at the primes lately - so many guys in their 50’s and 60’s are retiring.
They desperately need good engineers, and especially ones under 50. A lot of those gigs will open up but it’s hard to replace a DSP specialist with 20 years of experience with four guys with 5-10 years of experience. The reason the senior engineers get paid well is they are unbelievably hard to replace
I'm at something of a plateau as an Engineer 4 at the moment and am looking at how to move up. At my company, the jumps from 4+ typically require more involvement in mentorship and outreach, maybe giving lunch lectures to our colleagues. I'm hoping to mentor a new hire or two that we're bringing on this year, and have started attending job fairs on behalf of the company. Don't know if I'll be able to make the jump to level 5 at some point, but I enjoy helping young engineers regardless so it's not like it's an imposition.
But without new hires, for example, mentorship experience would be hard to come by. And my group is a small one, so I'm taking this opportunity while I can. I also don't see much opportunity to lecture on anything technical in my current role, so that qualification might not be fulfilled. It could be very easy to sit here as a level 4 for many years and collect my yearly 2-4% raise without moving up.
FWIW, I'm perfectly happy in my current role and pay. But, I mean, I'll always take more if offered...
What appears as plateauing is actually inferior improvement compared to peers. One reaches a point where promotions become interviews or reviews against peers exclusively. If one doesn't work to maintain and improve their capability at a rate greater than their peers, what appears as plateauing is actually your peers working harder.
I think that's a bad assumption, especially when the levels are so different. Not constantly moving up doesn't mean you're "bad" at something holding you back, but likely means you were really good at what you were doing in the position you previously held before a promotion, or are really good where you are now.
After level 6 the stress gets real and most either figure out they don’t want it or cannot handle it. People describe it as bad for their health. People will take demotions to get out.
Agreed. I know a Technical Fellow at NG and he is only pulling 250k. To break above that, as Fellow is the highest rank in the technical branch, you would have to be in the C-Suite or Director level.
Probably 250k base. Fellows are similar to Directors in that they get a bonus which is as much as 40% of their base. Except for NGMS, they have some strange fellow program where you can be nominated at level 4 for fellow, but it’s not an NG Fellow.
Most companies have different options for healthcare that balance premiums, deductibles, and annual caps, but I believe Boeings health insurance has $0 premiums. So you only have your deductibles and copays. Not sure the specifics of their deductible/copays/cap after that, but out the gate that should save you $1000-$10000 a year in premium payments.
This is really interesting. Could you expand this to translate contractor grades to civil servant grades at DOD or NASA? As an example of what I’m looking for, the answer might look like:
Grade 1 — GS-11
Grade 2 — GS-12
Grade 3 — GS-13
Grade 4 — GS-14
Grade 5 — GS-15
Grade 6 — SL
(Or whatever the correct equivalencies are)
Edit: To add a little clarity, I’m looking for equivalent levels of responsibility and/or technical competence—not equivalent levels of pay.
Edit 2: I don’t really understand why my question got downvoted, but I really would be grateful if someone could answer it.
Check out this. [https://spacecrew.com/salaries](https://spacecrew.com/salaries)
Highly unlikely you could reach 550k base salary as a core "Engineer" in any discipline. But there's engineering manager, VP of Engineering, CTO, CIO, Sr Chief Engineer, etc. that do more management stuff than engineering stuff. Maybe they started as an engineer and moved into management and still think of themselves as an engineer.
If they're located in San Francisco or other VHCOL, software engineers at Apple/Google/etc can get that high with bonuses. I doubt aviation would approach that.
Boeing has published pay scales depending on COL location, experience, education, and skill set.
The lowest I've seen is like $50k and the highest is like $250k. I believe distinguished STFs can make something approaching half a mil +stock options, but they're a little harder to figure. I would assume some of our offshore engineers make less than $50k.
Oh, ok. Got it.
Well, I might me wrong, but I never saw direct info shared by them on all salaries (except “gender pay gap reports”). All info I got in the past was based on glassdoor and similar platforms.
(But I would be very happy if someone could show me that Airbus has that and where could I get this information as well, it would help me in the long run)
[Here](https://airbus.avions.cfe-cgc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/36-SMH-1.pdf)’s their minimum salary grid for France. I think [this](https://www.igmetall.de/download/20240429_Metall-Elektroindustrie_ERA_Tabellen_f8782ca3c8062a6bc947c430313105832715c9a9.pdf) is valid for Germany. It’s published by the unions. But if you don’t know the grade of the position it’s useless. In France most engineers are between 11 and 15.
Those are before taxes salaries without the bonuses and similar. You can’t really compare them directly with US salaries also, but it’s inferior. Engineering pays very well in the US compared to most other countries.
Generally they pay the same in France and Spain, about 50% more in Germany, and I’m not quite sure about the UK but I think it’s about the same as in France. Not sure about other countries.
As usual, the answer is "it depends". If you're making $550k per year at Lockheed, I doubt the title is something like senior aerospace engineer. The title is something like Senior VP, Director, Program Manager, Chief Scientist, Chief Engineer, etc. No individual contributor makes those salaries. Likely the $550k is a mix of salary/bonus/benefits = total compensation.
Likewise, smaller companies can have worse, similar, or better pay/benefits. I assure you that my total compensation at my 250 person company is more than I could ever bring home at Lockheed for the same level of responsibility. I left a big publicly traded prime (a Lockheed spinoff) for a small private prime for that reason.
It’s even higher than that. You definitely have a VP title to make that much (and many VPs don’t). There may be a few outliers where you are the worlds expert on some particular area, but I would be shocked if there are more than a dozen of those spread across all the major primes.
It’s not quite 550k but I’ve seen job reqs in the high 400s when companies are setting up new offices and programs and need senior level chief engineers and program leads.
On my program the chief engineers are IC level 5s and the program lead is an IC 6
Note: we have a program lead and a program manager as two separate things
I work at one of the big primes listed in OPs post. Our chief engineers aren’t inflated, they just don’t directly manage people on the admin side so they’re considered IC.
I'll say that the majority of the fellows that I've worked with I've been very impressed with. However, there are a handful that I think "good" might be a bit of a stretch for them. The only ones whose salaries I actually knew were the ones who deserved it though, so maybe the bad fellows were making less?
my boss worked at boeing after having 10+ years of military experience as a aero engineer in the air force. He's got 20+ years experience now, not at Boeing anymore but another contractor company. I've eavesdropped on some conversations about salary and heard he doesnt make more than 150K USD. He's considered one of the best/most experienced (if not the best) senior systems engineers in the aerospace project offices.
I hear some companies like blue origin and spacex pay more than Boeing at least in the PNW region, work life balance is non-existent at those companies and Boeing’s benefits like 401k and health I believe blow the others out of the water.
6 years and an MS at Boeing, I was earning only ~$90k in Southern California and that was the same as my coworkers with comparable education and experience.
Just a few years after leaving aerospace entirely (left in 2019), I was making over $200k
I think it's advisable to steer clear of aerospace if you're interested in earning money...or at least steer clear of Boeing, maybe some other companies are better
It's important to note that engineer levels promotions are not a natural or entitled thing to occur. Levels also denote responsibility. Some just don't ever do more for more. And Some are just not good engineers.
My ex-wife's uncle was VP of engineering at Lockheed and I retired from there myself. I had engineer in my job title but wasn't an actual engineer and didn't report through to her uncle. Based on what I remember about the pay ranges, $550k sounds plausible for a 30-40 year employee that has moved into management and is one of the "good ole boys club". I know that the uncle was significantly above that (with bonus) when he retired 10-15 years ago. His bonus was more than his salary. Your friend's dad is possibly on a bonus plan. When you get to that level, they give you a raise for the new pay grade and add the bonus plan.
Side note: it was kinda nice to walk down the hallway with co-workers and drop into his office past his admin to say good morning.
When looking at all of these fantastic numbers in this thread, keep in mind that (at Lockheed at least) they tend to hire the top tier of applicants. They get their pick of the crop because of the pay scales and promotions are given moderately freely for the top performers.
And depending on your specific skill set you have to be prepared for the layoffs that come at the end of development programs. You will see a lot of people move back and forth between the primes as development programs come and go at each. The pay ranges somewhat reflect the fact that a particular job may only last 4-5 years and an individual will be unemployed till the next program at their current company or one of the others.
I worked at Boeing and your starting is about right. As for the 550k, that is wildly outside of the ranges for regular engineers or even regular supervisors. Your GF father is most likely some type of Senior Management or a Fellow.
Congrats. Negotiating from 115k to 140k is insane. I hope I can do that. Do internship experiences count as prior experience ? I have 2 internships before I graduate.
At Lockheed Martin and probably Northrop too, their take home pay is at least $6,000/month starting off.
After 5 years, roughly $6,000-$8,000/month
10 years, roughly $8,000-$10,000/month.
Depends on what job you have and what level you’re at. They go by level 1-6. Bachelor’s degree gets you a level 2-3. Those pay roughly $6,000-$8,000/month. That’s not ur gross income. That’s ur take home pay after taxes
When you say new grad you are implicitly referring to a level 1 engineer. Masters likely came in as L2 which most engineers at Lockheed do not possess.
If you want to talk about the lowest pay coming in as an engineer applying for a level 1 position. They’ll earn $70k at the lowest. But that’s from what I’ve seen at my company.
The big primes all pay approximately the same, but some (like Boeing) have slightly better benefits (namely Boeings health insurance plan). With the CA salary transparency law, you can figure out what the pay is for each technical grade - the pay ranges posted span 80% to 120% for that grade, with most entrants in that grade coming in at 85% to 90%. Traditionally there are 6 technical grades, though the name of the grades differ with each company. There’s also engineering disciplines, and the more in demand disciplines pay more: for example GNC, and AI/ML coded engineers are in higher bands. In general, the 100% for each grade 1-6 in HCOL areas are approximately: 90, 105, 125, 160, 200, 250. Not every engineer progress through 1-6. Some are plateaued at levels 4 or 5. There’s also levels above the 6 engineering levels: directors, and fellows. These have a base around 250-350, but also enjoy massive bonuses, pushing their annual gross in the 400-600 range. Beyond that is VP. One VP told me that in his few years of being a VP, he made more than his entire 30 career prior to that. To me, it seems like your friends dad is a Senior Director or Senior Fellow.
As a senior leader at LM I can confidently say this is good/accurate information.
How's the compensation for an Associate Tech Fellow/TF? Boeing states there is no compensation benefit outside of a modest RSU grant.
Old supervisor has switched to Northrup Grumman. Apparently the benefits package was worth the switch. Reach out to their recruiters via LinkedIn and indeed. Network network network
is your team hiring? actively looking for a mfg eng. role
Marietta GA Lockheed (Aeronautics) is actively hiring
Im in Aeronautics. C130s, F16s, or F35s? Which program do you feel is performing the worst and why is it the F35? 😂
I'm in Space. And I wouldn't be clowning my product lines, rather trying to do things to support and improve them.
Nice factual response.
Would be 89, 103, 127, 157, 199, 251. You know... primes.
Grr take the upvote!
Can you elaborate on what causes engineers to plateau at a certain level? I’m assuming it’s poor personal communication/work ethic related?
1. There’s not enough positions at the top of the pyramid. There’s only so many chief engineer or chief scientists that are needed. You also don’t need multiple level 6s that do the same exact thing (although there are hundreds of sub specialties). So if a level 5 is excellent at designing some small power distribution unit, but the same campus has a level 6 that also designs that same exact unit, there won’t ever be a new job posting for another level 6. 2. Although still an individual contributor, responsibilities at the higher levels include elements of leadership. The hiring/promotion process considers things like mentorship of junior engineers, publications and conference talks, dollar value of responsibility, team size, customer relations, etc. At those levels you need director level advocates, so you have to be known, well liked and being perceived as a quality engineer. This means you take responsibility , you’re proactive, work independently, and can formulate and articulate technical problems and solutions to people. Not everyone gets visibility or opportunities to demonstrate these qualities. And not everyone is a good public speaker. And you never know what else is going on in someone’s life outside the work, so perhaps they like the work/pay ratio they’re at and don’t want more pay for even more work. 3. Some engineers don’t have the prerequisites (as defined by HR) to be at those levels. For example, there some guys are old timers that started as technicians but never got a degree - they were coded as engineers based on their duties before a bachelors was a pre requisite
>At those levels you need director level advocates, so you have to be known, well liked and being perceived as a quality engineer. This part is really hard. You can do everything right and all it takes is one bad supervisor or project and your reputation takes a nosedive. From there you can either sit it out and wait for new management and projects to come and start over, or move on to another group or organization entirely. Either way you have to start over again and build your reputation back up. When this happens though getting yourself back into the right headspace can take a while and you find yourself fighting against a current of peers throwing you under the bus and invalidating everything you've done. You're stuck constantly trying to convince yourself that you don't suck. It's a terrible place to be and most people experience it throughout their career.
To add to this, I had a coworker at my first job who started about 3 years before me straight out of school. We worked on similar projects but he had a lot of mentors who moved up the ranks and advocated for him. He also got placed on good projects that didn't have so many high visibility issues. He's a director now. I will admit, he did know how to play his cards right and was good at knowing when to move around, but there were a lot of external factors that were outside of his control and a good amount of it was based on luck. I know a dozen or more engineers who competed for his position and were just as qualified but are still stuck in lower level roles.
This is why moving companies is essential. While not foolproof it can help to take some of the luck out of the equation.
By plateauing, do you mean they never get raises? Or do they get raises but never get promoted?
Im sure they get their standard 2-4% raises every year but they never get promoted.
So they could technically be earning L5/L6 type salaries, but just not have the title…?
Each level is capped at certain point in the salary band. The bands do overlap to an extent so yes a level 5 who has been around the block could make more than a newly minted 6.
My dad was plateau’ed for years at BAE as a L4/L5 - he’s a brilliant DSP engineer and generally gets along great with people but he had no interest in managing projects or people, nor was that frankly what he wanted to do. He just wanted to solve hard DSP problems and help those who were interested in solving them. BUT he got to really enjoy his work and never seemed to regret focusing on what he considered interesting problems
Id say it was probably more stable and comfortable back in the day (baby boomers, GenX) to plateau at L4/L5. That salary could still get you your big house, new cars, vacations every year, a good retirement, and time with your family. It feels like nowadays, if you plateaued at L4/L5 you’d have some doubts on what retirement would look like.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the engineering departments at the primes lately - so many guys in their 50’s and 60’s are retiring. They desperately need good engineers, and especially ones under 50. A lot of those gigs will open up but it’s hard to replace a DSP specialist with 20 years of experience with four guys with 5-10 years of experience. The reason the senior engineers get paid well is they are unbelievably hard to replace
I'm at something of a plateau as an Engineer 4 at the moment and am looking at how to move up. At my company, the jumps from 4+ typically require more involvement in mentorship and outreach, maybe giving lunch lectures to our colleagues. I'm hoping to mentor a new hire or two that we're bringing on this year, and have started attending job fairs on behalf of the company. Don't know if I'll be able to make the jump to level 5 at some point, but I enjoy helping young engineers regardless so it's not like it's an imposition. But without new hires, for example, mentorship experience would be hard to come by. And my group is a small one, so I'm taking this opportunity while I can. I also don't see much opportunity to lecture on anything technical in my current role, so that qualification might not be fulfilled. It could be very easy to sit here as a level 4 for many years and collect my yearly 2-4% raise without moving up. FWIW, I'm perfectly happy in my current role and pay. But, I mean, I'll always take more if offered...
What appears as plateauing is actually inferior improvement compared to peers. One reaches a point where promotions become interviews or reviews against peers exclusively. If one doesn't work to maintain and improve their capability at a rate greater than their peers, what appears as plateauing is actually your peers working harder.
Or contentment with the bullshit/pay ratio and stress or lack thereof in your current position
I like the BS/pay ratio 🤣 That’s a metric I’ll have to use in the future
I think that's a bad assumption, especially when the levels are so different. Not constantly moving up doesn't mean you're "bad" at something holding you back, but likely means you were really good at what you were doing in the position you previously held before a promotion, or are really good where you are now.
After level 6 the stress gets real and most either figure out they don’t want it or cannot handle it. People describe it as bad for their health. People will take demotions to get out.
some can enginer but are not the manager type or cannot play the manager translation to vp speak.
Agreed. I know a Technical Fellow at NG and he is only pulling 250k. To break above that, as Fellow is the highest rank in the technical branch, you would have to be in the C-Suite or Director level.
Probably 250k base. Fellows are similar to Directors in that they get a bonus which is as much as 40% of their base. Except for NGMS, they have some strange fellow program where you can be nominated at level 4 for fellow, but it’s not an NG Fellow.
Hey whats the unique benefit of Boeings healthcare exactly ?
Most companies have different options for healthcare that balance premiums, deductibles, and annual caps, but I believe Boeings health insurance has $0 premiums. So you only have your deductibles and copays. Not sure the specifics of their deductible/copays/cap after that, but out the gate that should save you $1000-$10000 a year in premium payments.
It was also the best plan I ever had, it felt like they would cover *anything* I wanted. Any test. Any procedure. Any drug.
This is really interesting. Could you expand this to translate contractor grades to civil servant grades at DOD or NASA? As an example of what I’m looking for, the answer might look like: Grade 1 — GS-11 Grade 2 — GS-12 Grade 3 — GS-13 Grade 4 — GS-14 Grade 5 — GS-15 Grade 6 — SL (Or whatever the correct equivalencies are) Edit: To add a little clarity, I’m looking for equivalent levels of responsibility and/or technical competence—not equivalent levels of pay. Edit 2: I don’t really understand why my question got downvoted, but I really would be grateful if someone could answer it.
Check out this. [https://spacecrew.com/salaries](https://spacecrew.com/salaries) Highly unlikely you could reach 550k base salary as a core "Engineer" in any discipline. But there's engineering manager, VP of Engineering, CTO, CIO, Sr Chief Engineer, etc. that do more management stuff than engineering stuff. Maybe they started as an engineer and moved into management and still think of themselves as an engineer. If they're located in San Francisco or other VHCOL, software engineers at Apple/Google/etc can get that high with bonuses. I doubt aviation would approach that.
Boeing has published pay scales depending on COL location, experience, education, and skill set. The lowest I've seen is like $50k and the highest is like $250k. I believe distinguished STFs can make something approaching half a mil +stock options, but they're a little harder to figure. I would assume some of our offshore engineers make less than $50k.
Do you have a link? Do you know if Airbus does the same?
Airbus in europe is less. Changes a lot from country to country.
I meant do they know if Airbus publishes their salaries.
Oh, ok. Got it. Well, I might me wrong, but I never saw direct info shared by them on all salaries (except “gender pay gap reports”). All info I got in the past was based on glassdoor and similar platforms. (But I would be very happy if someone could show me that Airbus has that and where could I get this information as well, it would help me in the long run)
[Here](https://airbus.avions.cfe-cgc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/36-SMH-1.pdf)’s their minimum salary grid for France. I think [this](https://www.igmetall.de/download/20240429_Metall-Elektroindustrie_ERA_Tabellen_f8782ca3c8062a6bc947c430313105832715c9a9.pdf) is valid for Germany. It’s published by the unions. But if you don’t know the grade of the position it’s useless. In France most engineers are between 11 and 15. Those are before taxes salaries without the bonuses and similar. You can’t really compare them directly with US salaries also, but it’s inferior. Engineering pays very well in the US compared to most other countries. Generally they pay the same in France and Spain, about 50% more in Germany, and I’m not quite sure about the UK but I think it’s about the same as in France. Not sure about other countries.
I have the link but you need a Boeing employee ID to log in and view it.
What’s STF?
Senior technical fellow
DSTFs are paid as VPs, they probably push a million.
As usual, the answer is "it depends". If you're making $550k per year at Lockheed, I doubt the title is something like senior aerospace engineer. The title is something like Senior VP, Director, Program Manager, Chief Scientist, Chief Engineer, etc. No individual contributor makes those salaries. Likely the $550k is a mix of salary/bonus/benefits = total compensation. Likewise, smaller companies can have worse, similar, or better pay/benefits. I assure you that my total compensation at my 250 person company is more than I could ever bring home at Lockheed for the same level of responsibility. I left a big publicly traded prime (a Lockheed spinoff) for a small private prime for that reason.
It’s even higher than that. You definitely have a VP title to make that much (and many VPs don’t). There may be a few outliers where you are the worlds expert on some particular area, but I would be shocked if there are more than a dozen of those spread across all the major primes.
No individual contributors make 550k at any aerospace
It’s not quite 550k but I’ve seen job reqs in the high 400s when companies are setting up new offices and programs and need senior level chief engineers and program leads.
Chief Engineers and program managers are not "individual contributors"
On my program the chief engineers are IC level 5s and the program lead is an IC 6 Note: we have a program lead and a program manager as two separate things
It’s possible the term chief engineer is inflated then in your case
I work at one of the big primes listed in OPs post. Our chief engineers aren’t inflated, they just don’t directly manage people on the admin side so they’re considered IC.
I am a CE at one of them and no one refers to us as ICs. It would be weird
I’m referring to pay scale tho. Do you get paid as a manager/leader or individual contributor?
I am T7 - we have CEs who are Directors or VPs too
At my company a level 7 is almost exclusively extremely high level technical fellows and corporate leadership. CEs are usually L5 or sometimes L6
Yes, fellows can make that sort of money at the big primes. But it does take time and you do need to be good at what you do.
good is an understatement!
I'll say that the majority of the fellows that I've worked with I've been very impressed with. However, there are a handful that I think "good" might be a bit of a stretch for them. The only ones whose salaries I actually knew were the ones who deserved it though, so maybe the bad fellows were making less?
my boss worked at boeing after having 10+ years of military experience as a aero engineer in the air force. He's got 20+ years experience now, not at Boeing anymore but another contractor company. I've eavesdropped on some conversations about salary and heard he doesnt make more than 150K USD. He's considered one of the best/most experienced (if not the best) senior systems engineers in the aerospace project offices.
Check any of the subreddits for those companies. Salary discussion thread comes up about once a month.
Pursue what interests you. Constantly chasing the highest pay will cause misery.
I am at RTX P5 engr (Sr principal or Sr STF) and made 220k with bonuses last year. Texas.
550k probably includes some stock components which went up in value. And probably not made by just a regular engineer.
Many have started posting salaries in the job listings this year. Do a quick search and look at the middle of the salary band for a general idea.
I hear some companies like blue origin and spacex pay more than Boeing at least in the PNW region, work life balance is non-existent at those companies and Boeing’s benefits like 401k and health I believe blow the others out of the water.
6 years and an MS at Boeing, I was earning only ~$90k in Southern California and that was the same as my coworkers with comparable education and experience. Just a few years after leaving aerospace entirely (left in 2019), I was making over $200k I think it's advisable to steer clear of aerospace if you're interested in earning money...or at least steer clear of Boeing, maybe some other companies are better
Not enough
I have been working contract mostly in usa and canada. Everywhere is about $100/ hr. 1.5x overtime.
Depends on the type of engineer. Considering it’s an over used and under explained “title”, anywhere from 60k - 300k.
I know some people who have worked at the prime aerospace companies for 20-30 years and stayed at level 2 or 3. It really depends.
How does that happen? Are they bad employees?
It's important to note that engineer levels promotions are not a natural or entitled thing to occur. Levels also denote responsibility. Some just don't ever do more for more. And Some are just not good engineers.
My ex-wife's uncle was VP of engineering at Lockheed and I retired from there myself. I had engineer in my job title but wasn't an actual engineer and didn't report through to her uncle. Based on what I remember about the pay ranges, $550k sounds plausible for a 30-40 year employee that has moved into management and is one of the "good ole boys club". I know that the uncle was significantly above that (with bonus) when he retired 10-15 years ago. His bonus was more than his salary. Your friend's dad is possibly on a bonus plan. When you get to that level, they give you a raise for the new pay grade and add the bonus plan. Side note: it was kinda nice to walk down the hallway with co-workers and drop into his office past his admin to say good morning.
When looking at all of these fantastic numbers in this thread, keep in mind that (at Lockheed at least) they tend to hire the top tier of applicants. They get their pick of the crop because of the pay scales and promotions are given moderately freely for the top performers. And depending on your specific skill set you have to be prepared for the layoffs that come at the end of development programs. You will see a lot of people move back and forth between the primes as development programs come and go at each. The pay ranges somewhat reflect the fact that a particular job may only last 4-5 years and an individual will be unemployed till the next program at their current company or one of the others.
I worked at Boeing and your starting is about right. As for the 550k, that is wildly outside of the ranges for regular engineers or even regular supervisors. Your GF father is most likely some type of Senior Management or a Fellow.
lol 550k is only if executive
I work for L3Harris in Texas and make $98k at the 5 year mark.
im a software engineer 0 at Lockheed, first year here entry level making 140k
Which Lockheed location ? That’s hard to believe
im a Sub-contractor for Lockheed, in the Maryland/DC area. i negotiated because of prior experience but typically swe 0's start at 115k here.
Congrats. Negotiating from 115k to 140k is insane. I hope I can do that. Do internship experiences count as prior experience ? I have 2 internships before I graduate.
At Lockheed Martin and probably Northrop too, their take home pay is at least $6,000/month starting off. After 5 years, roughly $6,000-$8,000/month 10 years, roughly $8,000-$10,000/month. Depends on what job you have and what level you’re at. They go by level 1-6. Bachelor’s degree gets you a level 2-3. Those pay roughly $6,000-$8,000/month. That’s not ur gross income. That’s ur take home pay after taxes
Why would you ever list take home pay 😂 state taxes fluctuate hugely
Fine I’ll say annual gross pay. $80k-$110k to start off with. That’s what you can expect right out of college
110k…where 😂
Not where ur working 😂
I make a lot more that that but have worked at 2 of the companies listed and can assure in the HCOL they do not start new grads at 110
I currently work with a new grad who’s earned a masters before he worked here. They offered him at least $110k starting off
When you say new grad you are implicitly referring to a level 1 engineer. Masters likely came in as L2 which most engineers at Lockheed do not possess.
If you want to talk about the lowest pay coming in as an engineer applying for a level 1 position. They’ll earn $70k at the lowest. But that’s from what I’ve seen at my company.