Mechanical engineering is advertised as the broadest degree in engineering. You can work in any industry. You can do anything. Everything is mechanical. The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the breadth: mechanical engineers appear across more than fifteen distinct industry sectors, from machinery manufacturing to aerospace to medical devices to oil and gas to engineering services (BLS, 2023). No other major engineering discipline is spread this thin. Electrical engineers concentrate in ten to twelve sectors. Chemical engineers in six to eight. Civil engineers in eight to ten. ME touches everything. See Reason #4.
The pitch says that breadth equals opportunity. The wage data says it equals dilution. An ME working in metalworking machinery manufacturing earns a mean of $84,820. An ME in scientific R&D earns $126,220. That is a $41,400 spread determined not by your skill but by which industry pocket you landed in (BLS, 2023). Compare that to software developers, whose mean wages range from $122,760 in consulting to $148,610 in software publishing, a spread of $25,850, and whose floor is $37,940 above yours. For a software developer, the industry barely matters. For you, the industry is the career. See Reason #18.
Labor economists have a framework for this. Industry-specific human capital, the knowledge you build by spending years inside one sector's fixtures, standards, suppliers, and regulatory environment, is a primary determinant of wages for manufacturing workers (Neal, 1995; Sullivan, 2008). Workers who switch industries after displacement suffer wage losses that grow in proportion to their prior tenure, because the switch forces them to forfeit the returns on years of accumulated sector knowledge. ME's broadness does not protect you from this. It guarantees it. The degree trains you for fifteen industries and specializes you in none, so every lateral move is a partial reset. Your two years on vibration analysis for rotating equipment in oil and gas do not help you get the thermal management job in consumer electronics. Different physics. Different CAD platform. Different supplier base. Different regulatory framework. You are starting over.
The tools make the reset worse. The ME CAD market uses at least twelve actively maintained platforms with no native cross-compatibility between them (Onshape/Isurus, 2024). SolidWorks dominates the mainstream. CATIA runs aerospace OEMs. NX runs automotive. Creo runs defense. Your SolidWorks part file does not open in NX without conversion. Your CATIA surface model loses geometry in SolidWorks. An Onshape survey of over 1,400 product design professionals found that one in eight mainstream CAD users switched platforms in a three-year window, and 23 percent expected to switch within five years (Onshape/Isurus, 2024). Every switch is a requalification: new UI, new assembly logic, new PDM integration, new drawing generation workflow. A software developer moving from fintech to healthcare does not relearn Python. A circuit designer moving from power to RF does not relearn Ohm's law. You relearn the tool and the domain simultaneously. See Reason #62.
Now put the three facts together. ME produces the most graduates of any engineering discipline, roughly 36,600 bachelor's degrees a year. It is employed across the most industries. And it carries the lowest median wage among major engineering branches at $102,320 (BLS, 2023). Chemical engineering produces one-third as many graduates, employs them in half as many industries, and pays them $9,780 more per year at the median. EE produces half as many graduates, is dispersed across fewer sectors, and pays $4,630 more. Software developers outearn ME by nearly $30,000 at the median while their industry spread barely affects their paycheck because their skills are portable and their floor is already $37,000 above yours. ME is the only discipline that is simultaneously the most produced, the most dispersed, and the lowest paid. Broadness is not a feature of that combination. It is the diagnosis. See Reason #34.
You were told the Swiss Army knife opens every door. It does. It just does not pay well in any of the rooms.
References:
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023, May). Occupational employment and wage statistics: Mechanical engineers (17-2141). https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes172141.htm
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023, May). Occupational employment and wage statistics: Electrical engineers (17-2071). https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes172071.htm
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023, May). Occupational employment and wage statistics: Software developers (15-1252). https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes151252.htm
Neal, D. (1995). Industry-specific human capital: Evidence from displaced workers. Journal of Labor Economics, 13(4), 653-677. https://www.derekneal.economics.uchicago.edu/files/2022/01/JOLE1995.pdf
Onshape/Isurus. (2024). State of product development and hardware design 2023-2024. https://www.onshape.com/cdn-files/561abe5f1704f4f516eb42785347f7ea2746dcb9.pdf
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