<p>*Mr. James says, the problem, certainly in Western Europe, is that engineering isnt seen as a desirable career. We culturally are not interested in engineering and manufacturing, he said. In Britain it stems from the Victorian era where anyone involved in business was rather dirty.</p>
<p>We had this 19th century disdain. That is what the lower classes did.</p>
<p>It exists today although no-one will express it a class thing, rather than a cultural thing. Engineers are not seen as creative; they are people who make washing machines.</p>
<p>I was appalled when I heard [the former U.K. Prime Minister] Tony Blair talk about the creative industries. Architects and publishers and fashion designers are part of creative, but so are engineers. We are make things every day. That is being creative.*</p>
<p>The real issue with engineering as a profession is that the very best engineers don’t make more money than marginal or mediocre engineers. If the profession wanted to be attractive and draw the best talent, it would need to offer 100k+ right out of college, to top students. That already exists in software (in fact, all of the strong students that I know have started out above 100k, and many in fairly low cost areas)</p>
<p>It has not always occurred in software. Right after the dotcom bubble burst, few entry-level software engineers were making that kind of money. As for the general question of how much any engineer should make, IMO, no one should be looking to engineering as a means to be wealthy. It might happen, but don’t count on it.</p>
<p>But its as good a choice as anything else. In fact, better than most.
There is no clearly defined path to being wealthy.</p>
<p>Aspiring to be a lawyer is definitely not a good way to become wealthy in this market. Investment banking is not an option for the vast majority of college students. And only specialists in medicine make real money (like 400k or more). But that is far from an easy process (lost wages, student loans, 10 year residency). Include malpractice insurance and progressive tax rates and even that doesn’t look like a great idea. </p>
<p>I believe a software engineer with a BS making 90k starting is a very, very good deal.</p>
<p>I don’t know about other fields of engineering, but I think the key to making a decent income as a structural engineer is to work for yourself. We still put in a lot of hours, but at least we get paid for all of them. </p>
<p>A firm was interested in hiring my husband after he did some work for them. They just couldn’t offer him what we can bring in, working out of our house, so he turned them down. We are happy not to be working in cubicles, too.</p>
<p>I didn’t say otherwise. If you can earn that kind of money as a starting salary, great. It’s not common for software engineers’ starting salaries outside of bubble economies. OTOH, if you approach the situation with the expectation that your salary could rise and fall with the cyclicality of the demand for software work, you’ll be in better shape to ride out post-bubble economies.</p>
<p>Software engineering is actually competitive with elite finance salary wise. It also tends to be much better from a work-life balance perspective. When I interviewed for sales and trading at a bulge bracket bank, many people considered working at Facebook/Google/Amazon to be just as good if not better than starting a career in banking. That is definitely not true of any non-software engineering. </p>
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<p>Actually, I disagree. I don’t think that the high pay that we’re seeing right now for software engineers has anything to do with the supply of qualified software engineers, and it is only somewhat affected by demand. Google could pay 100k starting out (all in) and probably get top quality software developers, but then those software developers would quickly learn about Google’s software ideas and then take them to other companies. I think that this is the same reason why Investment Banking has high salaries, especially at the MD level. If an MD wasn’t given a large share of the profits, they could leave and take their connections to another firm. </p>
<p>This ties into why government agencies pay very low salaries, even if the quality of their talent is top notch.</p>
<p>You do realize that Facebook/Google/Amazon and a few others such as Apple are the Goldman Sachs’ of the software industry, right? The salaries they pay, especially to entry-level staff, are not representative of what the industry pays at large. Furthermore, when comparing salaries, make sure you compare the base pay; do not include the value of stock options, even if they have vested.</p>
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<p>Actually, this is exactly what is happening. Do you read TechCrunch? It is filled with reports of people who’ve left the big name software companies and gone to smaller startups. Some even form their own startups. Then the larger companies complain that no one’s available.</p>
<p>The attitude toward engineering in Britain is completely different than in Germany. Instead of Western Europe Dyson should have just said Britain or perhaps just England.</p>