r/ChemicalEngineering • u/MistakeSea6886 • Sep 21 '23

Salary What’s the most profitable career path?

I’m a freshmen Engineering major that is taking gen Ed’s. I am thinking of switching to chemical engineering next year. I really like ChE but but want to pick a profitable career path, which is why I’m on the fence between it and Computer science. I did research and found that petroleum engineering is very profitable, and ChE can pick it pretty quickly. However with the way the world is going(more green energy), are renewable energy jobs such as nuclear power plants going to experience a boom in demand and become more profitable?

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u/Domethegoon Geotechnical Eng. Intruder Sep 22 '23 edited Sep 22 '23

I see a lot of people saying on here that "chemical engineering pay is not that great compared to x, y, and z." I'm calling bullshit. I'm a civil engineer and I know chemical engineers that make literally double what I make without their PE. Engineers that work for oil and gas or big pharma can make an absolute boatload of money. People saying computer science makes more but they are thinking of people that work for FAANG which is few and far between.

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u/MistakeSea6886 Sep 22 '23

Exactly, I’m not sure how realistic being hired by FAANG is, but apparently new programmers are having trouble finding work because the market is over saturated, and companies only really want senior programmers

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u/Domethegoon Geotechnical Eng. Intruder Sep 22 '23

Most computer science majors probably make much less than Chemicak Engineers, one if the single highest paying engineering fields next to Petroleum Engineers.