r/ChemicalEngineering • u/Ok-Poem653 • Apr 26 '23

Salary Entry level salary right after university

Hi yall, I recently landed an entry level material engineering job and received a salary offer of $63k per year. I graduate with my chemical engineering degree this May. I am wondering if this salary offer is fair or if I am underselling myself.

When I attempted a salary negotiation with the recruiter in HR, they mentioned that the salary system is based on an annual evaluation and that the company has seen an average salary increase of 10% to 12% due to inflation.

I have accepted the offer, but I would appreciate any input or insights from those with more experience in the field. Thank you in advance for your help!

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u/Ritterbruder2 Apr 26 '23

Over doubled

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '23

[deleted]

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u/Ritterbruder2 Apr 26 '23

The 3% annual isn’t a “raise”. It’s just an adjustment. Actual raises should be at least 10%.

By the way, 37% increase in 7 years comes out to 4.6% averaged annually. Double in 8 years comes out to 9% annually. I got all of my big raises except one from changing jobs. I’ve also been laid off twice and taken pay cuts during that time.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '23

Okay I may be doing things wrong…been with current company 5 years. We froze raises for 2 years during Covid, and then coming out of Covid I got a double promotion (so up twice on ladder). We did a market adjustment, so the total of two years raises / double promotion / market adjustment was 16%, which I negotiated to 20%. Basically we restructured and I do what used to be 4 independent roles, hence the raise.

I did look around for jobs, but people kept offering me things like 80k for 5-10 YoE roles so I quit.