r/ChemicalEngineering • u/MrGod25 • Jul 15 '23

Salary Mid-year Salary check 2023

Good time to discuss and share salary, role work-hours, industry location, YOE, etc. I'll start:

YOE: 5 yrs

Salary: $102k base, 3 wks pto, 401k, usual

Role: Controls Engineer

Industry: Specialty Chems

Location: Houston, TX

Work-hours: 20-40 hours/week

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u/ChemEngRy Jul 16 '23

You're underpaid severely for where you're located. Do you have a degree?

Your salary should be $85k with no bonuses at least

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u/papiculo_dodicessimo Jul 16 '23

Yeah unfortunately I know. I do have a degree, but this is my first real engineering position. Most of my experience was as a lab chemist. I've only had this position for a few months and I was only making $43k before this. They're positioning me to be the head chemical engineer when my boss retires in a few years, so hopefully I should be looking at a big pay bump when that happens. I'm keeping my eye out for other positions, but for now I'm really trying to learn as much as I can.

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u/ChemEngRy Jul 16 '23

I don't know what your situation is, but I wouldn't wait around for them to figure it out. Degreed Engineers are never "Assistant Engineers" - that seems like a syntactics tactic to suppress your compensation.

I have heard of progressive systems by experience, i.e. Engineer I, Engineer II, III, IV, Staff, etc. But even starting out you have the full title.