r/ChemicalEngineering • u/Illustrious-Art-55 • 14d ago
Salary Why are chemical engineers paid so less?
They work at dangerous sites, their work includes many complex operations, its way more complex then writing some code in AC room and the companies they work for? They earn in millions, still Chemical engineers are not paid good say in terms of IT industry or even automobile for that matter.
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u/admadguy Process Consulting and Modelling 14d ago edited 14d ago
Whether they are paid well or not depends on where you are. Your post history suggests India? So the salaries won't be comparable to US for ChemE. To be fair nowhere compares to US For ChemEs
I am not sure whether you believe ChemEs in India are poorly paid as a whole, or compared to say Software crowd. I'll say this though, lot of developing countries do Chemical production that the west doesn't want to, but still needs the products. Usually hazardous processes, that are too expensive from a regulatory standpoint in the west, this is not strictly moral but it's the way the world is. This also means being a ChemE in said developing countries is a stable job because those products are still needed everywhere.
having dealt with Chemical Engineers from many places, I can still say they are still paid well in terms of the broader economic parameters of their countries. Maybe not as well as software, but that's a different kettle of fish. You also have issues with job stability in software, less so in heavy engineering. ChemE and even auto are those places where your value immensely grows with experience. You can stay technical for much longer than software where outside of a few, most have to end up in management-y roles.
You also need to put in more effort while writing posts, rather than looking like a tweet.