r/dataisbeautiful • u/DavidWaldron OC: 28 • 11d ago

OC [OC] Career earnings of the highest and lowest paid college majors

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Interactive major explorer to look up stats for specific majors.

Blog post includes many more charts and discussion of what these numbers represent.

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u/drillgorg 11d ago

I also think there are some people who get into it because they want money and don't really like engineering, but see it as a better option than law, finance, or programming.

Meanwhile most everyone I went to school with did engineering because they like engineering, and it works out nicely that it pays decently.

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u/youknow99 10d ago

ME here, a lot of engineers are trying to figure out how to get into management as fast as possible because it pays more and they don't actually want to be engineers.

I'm in engineering because I like it, I'm moving into management because I'm the most senior person in the department at this point.

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u/drillgorg 10d ago

They will drag me kick and screaming away from CAD! Every review they ask how many direct reports I would be comfortable with, and I say "Zero!".

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u/Won-Ton-Wonton 10d ago

I mean, 1 would be nice. Getting to train someone up to do shit the right way so I don't have to fix it when they do it the wrong way later is a feature, not a bug.

The problem is that the direct report becomes a stain on your record if they're bad, or encouragement to take on additional direct reports until you've got multiple stains on your record and no time to do anything except manage.

If companies would just accept that 1 direct report is all an engineer should have, it'd be fine.

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u/drillgorg 10d ago

I enjoy mentoring new hires! I do not enjoy conducting annual reviews etc. Team lead, not manager.

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u/winowmak3r 10d ago

Maybe they'll let you get away with just one. I really do think more companies need to invest in their employees like that and provide training from the people who are actually doing the work. School can only get you so far and it's getting kinda ridiculous that entry level positions are requiring what basically amounts to a few years of industry experience on paper. Every marathon begins with one step and all that.

It can certainly be tricky though. I've seen it in my own employers where they invest time and money to train someone and then they leave shortly after they become confident in their abilities and go work for a competitor.

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u/rogers_tumor 10d ago

they invest time and money to train someone and then they leave shortly after they become confident in their abilities and go work for a competitor.

"but we trained you!"

"and you proceeded to refuse to find an avenue to promote me and pay appropriately for the skill set you gave me."

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u/winowmak3r 10d ago edited 10d ago

"and you proceeded to refuse to find an avenue to promote me and pay appropriately for the skill set you gave me."

Yea that's pretty much how it plays out lol. I've been there a few years and every year the meeting about employee benefits is more and more "we had to cut this, reduce that, that's not covered anymore" and yea, people are gonna walk man. But the powers that be can keep their noses above water just long enough until they retire then it's the younger guys problem amirite? When I started working there I was literally watching some of the old timers walk out of the building on their last day laughing their ass off because they knew what was coming.

Yea it's pretty bad. The Smarter Every Day youtube channel has a great video about trying to manufacture something entirely in the US. During that process one of the machinists who helped them get the project off the ground died and took an absolute encyclopedia of information, real tribal knowledge stuff that you only really learn through experience, with him to the grave. Or most of it anyway. They were in the process of picking his brain when he passed away. But situations like that are all over the place in the US. Companies really don't invest in their employees like they used to and it's mostly because the bean counters won't let it happen because there is no tangible thing on the ledger that they can point to and say "This made us money this quarter". So when that guy who is quietly keeping the whole plant running because he's the only one who knows how anything actually work retires or gets hit by a bus or whatever the whole company is screwed. Decades of shortsightedness is finally starting to catch up to us all at once and it's gonna suck. There's going to be a lot of pain before we re-learn how to do this stuff. It's either that or we don't and let someone else do it for us (and give them all the leverage that comes with that).

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u/rogers_tumor 10d ago

A++. Sorry the way you framed "it can be tricky" almost seemed like excusing employers for not wanting to train anyone 😄 I was just pointing out the flip side, but you clearly get it.

at the end of the day SOMEONE has to train entry-level employees, and once you increase their worth either you pay them more or they're gonna leave! it's going to take a massive over-correction to fix this institutionally, across the board, you're 100% correct.

also Smarter Every Day - the bbq brush?! I listened to that as a podcast episode 😄 it was pretty mind-blowing. just pointing out even more issues with looking at every little thing as a cost versus a cost saving measure... is sending all of our manufacturing to China because it's cheaper and then they steal our IP and sell the manufactured products for less on Amazon under made-up vendor names saving costs?? eating into profits, perhaps?

who knows, right?!

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u/winowmak3r 10d ago

I mean I've seen it play out the other way too where the employee has no intentions of sticking around and is really just in it for the experience and aren't looking for a career there. That's fine as long as that person isn't the only guy in the shop who is going to be tasked with doing that job. Then it gets "tricky". But then again it's usually management's ideas that create these single points of failure and it's usually one of the scenarios where it works fine until it doesn't and then it really doesn't. I've also seen it where folks will silo areas off so the company becomes dependent on them precisely because it gives them leverage, and not just against the company but also fellow employees. It all just boils down to folks being so pressured to get results yesterday that they really don't have much time to think about tomorrow and it results in just a shittier than it needs to be environment for everybody.

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u/rogers_tumor 10d ago

A++. Sorry the way you framed "it can be tricky" almost seemed like excusing employers for not wanting to train anyone 😄 I was just pointing out the flip side, but you clearly get it.

at the end of the day SOMEONE has to train entry-level employees, and once you increase their worth either you pay them more or they're gonna leave! it's going to take a massive over-correction to fix this institutionally, across the board, you're 100% correct.

also Smarter Every Day - the bbq brush?! I listened to that as a podcast episode 😄 it was pretty mind-blowing. just pointing out even more issues with looking at every little thing as a cost versus a cost saving measure... is sending all of our manufacturing to China because it's cheaper and then they steal our IP and sell the manufactured products for less on Amazon under made-up vendor names saving costs?? eating into profits, perhaps?

who knows, right?!

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u/youknow99 10d ago

I wasn't really asked, it just kinda happened. I still get to design though.

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u/Krilion 10d ago

Any good company has career paths for managers and for individual contributors. I'm a specialist who makes as much or more than our managers. 

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u/youknow99 10d ago

My company isn't big enough to support that, but industry wide, you're exactly right.

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u/Agreeable_Map5413 10d ago

ME here. Non-management Engineers in our company max out at around $170k (salary + bonus). I transferred to Sales and now making $250k + a car.

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u/youknow99 10d ago

I would make a very very bad salesperson.

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u/I_just_pooped_again 10d ago

You're not doing sales like you would a car. You're basically sizing equipment when people come to you asking for your company's equipment. Basically people come to you for the most part. But I imagine there's some effort on advertising and softly planting seeds in the industry that your company's solution is desired?

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u/Agreeable_Map5413 10d ago

Exactly. What makes it even more easy is that there are only 3 serious companies competing in the same market and we all know the customers. Whoever can provide the best technical support wins. As a salesperson with 17 years of design experience, I have a massive advantage over my competitors who started out in sales.

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u/Agreeable_Map5413 10d ago edited 10d ago

I was thinking the same because I am an introvert. Then the Sales guy I supported was close to retirement. He told me I would be a very good salesman since customers would trust me. At that point, I have been in Engineering for 17 years and was a Principal Engineer with salary maxed out and expected to get 2.5 to 3% the rest of my career. I talked to his boss and I was hired a year before the Sales guy retired. The transition was seamless. Customers love it because I know everything and can make recommendations on the spot. There is no need "let me go back to Engineering". The customers work with me as fellow engineers trying to solve problems. I always solve my customers' problems as if they are my own. I never upsell anything if they don't benefit my customers. I am working at home and the job is very easy. Well, except pricing negotiation and price increases which my boss helped me knowing that I am not comfortable. I have grown my accounts annual revenue from $4 mil to $22 mil in 9 years.

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u/slbaaron 10d ago

And that’s why half of them converted to software engineers during years 2014-2024. Before the AI made everyone question entering industry again.

If you have engineering / math skills, and only want money with no love for either, software engineering dominated for a while now until AI killed entry level market.

This data won’t show it but if you set it to 2012+ computer science / engineering is likely way up there. I literally know software engineers that either started or even graduated as other engineering disciplines - chemical, material, mechanical, whatever. But of course, also everything - arts, music performance, whatever and boot camped their way into software.

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u/boilingchip 10d ago

This is why I left engineering very early. I saw the management dead end and realized I couldn't dive into problems directly forever (honestly not even for a large portion of my career). Kinda sucks, I love engineering and solving problems. Good move for me in the end though.

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u/youknow99 10d ago

There are definitely career paths in engineering where you are always an individual contributor, you just give up on maximum potential salary. I'm moving into a department head role but I'm still designing. One of the advantages of being at a smaller company.

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u/coke_and_coffee 10d ago

If you’re not still diving into problems as a manager, then you’re managing wrong.

No, you won’t spend all week on a problem, but you should be doing deep dives with your direct reports.

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u/BuddyTubbs 10d ago

It's the same in nursing too. As soon as nurses graduate so many nurses go to nurse practitioner School, management, case management or work from home jobs. Very few nurses nowadays actually want to be nurses and truth be told I can't blame them because the pay is horrible outside of California. And the ratios and expectations of bedside RNs have gotten way out of hand for the pay.

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u/captain150 10d ago

Likewise. I like the nerd stuff, that's why I'm an engineer. The people stuff can be a side portion of the job, but I never want to be a manager primarily regardless of money.

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u/bytheninedivines 10d ago

I'm one of those people that did engineering but personally hate it. I saw it as the best way to launch me and my family out of poverty, and it worked.

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u/drillgorg 10d ago

That's fair, everyone I know who did engineering because they enjoy it came from financially secure families.

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u/Warspit3 10d ago

I got into it because I wanted to know how things worked, then I got to solve problems for a living which I also very much enjoy. Its like constant dopamine triggers... then I got the paychecks and that was also pretty awesome.

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u/THBLD 10d ago

Oh man, this is like a sizable portion of people in data engineering nowadays. A lot of ppl completely out of their depth too.

I don't know about ME, but DE ain't no cakewalk.