Reason #38: The Other Engineers (and Techs) are Happier

Feeling the pinch from underpayment, see Reason #27, you look up your job title and see 3.69 out of 5 for job satisfaction. Then you check the neighbors: electrical, civil, chemical, software, even aerospace. They all sit around 3.9 to 4.0. Why is ME the outlier? The daily reality helps explain it. The report is the product, the meeting is the milestone, and the drawing is the deliverable, see Reason #33. 

On PayScale’s own five-point scale, mechanical engineers rate job satisfaction at 3.69. Electrical engineers sit at 3.90, civil at 3.93, chemical at 3.92, software at 3.96, and aerospace at 3.98. Taken together, that non-ME cluster averages about 3.94. ME trails it by roughly 6 percent. Directional, yes, but same method across pages and large enough to notice (PayScale, n.d.-a, n.d.-b, n.d.-c, n.d.-d, n.d.-e, n.d.-f).

Even the technologist variant edges you out. Mechanical engineering technologist shows 4.00. The sample is tiny, so I should keep my asterisk handy, but that stat still sting because it matches what you feel on the floor. The technologist stands the rig up (see Reason #16). You shepherd the ECO, massage the BOM, and close the CAPA log so production can move (see Reason #26). Satisfaction tends to follow ownership of the thing that moves the needle, not the slide that explains why it did not, see Reason #32. (PayScale, n.d.-g)

The roots go back to school and the pipeline you were sold. You were told the math would open the doors, then you watched doors open for people who could make the fixtures repeat by Friday (see Reason #31). That mismatch between syllabus and shop feeds the quiet drag you see in the ratings. It also explains why the longer program and the detour semesters feel wasteful when you land in a role that is mostly validation and status updates (see Reason #2) 

You will not hate it. You will just like it less.

References:

PayScale. (n.d.-a). Mechanical Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Mechanical_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-b). Electrical Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Electrical_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-c). Civil Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Civil_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-d). Chemical Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chemical_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-e). Software Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-f). Aerospace Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Aerospace_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-g). Mechanical Engineering Technologist salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Mechanical_Engineering_Technologist/Salary

Reason #28: Promotion Means Leaving Mechanical Engineering

The raise that actually changes your life comes with a new badge. It moves you away from mechanical engineering. By year seven you are smoothing supplier drama, shepherding ECO gates, and babysitting packaging drop tests so a DV/PV pack can crawl through approval. You spend more time in status decks than in design, see Reason #9.

The organization pays for what protects revenue and schedule, not for the quiet correctness of a tolerance stack. So the ladder tilts toward roles that own customers, calendars, and headcount. Program management finds you because you already run the shaker queue and the UL retest calendar. Product management is the same move with a market attached: requirements, tradeoffs, launch dates. Operations pulls you because you live on the floor and can translate a polymer creep hiccup into throughput. Technical marketing hires you to turn specs into positioning and to make a demo survive a sales call. Business development likes that you can read a drawing, price a BOM, and still carry a room. Consulting wants the same skills with a savings guarantee on a slide. None of that is mechanical engineering, see Reason #14 and Reason #16.

Geography helps the drift. Plants pick zip codes; customers pick the map. Operations, product, and program roles can sit nearer headquarters or the market and farther from the cell that needs your badge to clear an ECN. If you want a different city or a ceiling that finally moves, you follow the jobs that live off the floor. See Reason #20.

You will tell yourself you still “use your engineering every day.” In truth you move numbers, not metal. You negotiate lab time you no longer need, promise dates you do not control, and translate testing noise for people who will never see the rig. Is that flexibility or an exit?

You rise, the metal recedes, and the title that made you an engineer becomes a line in your bio, see Reason #15.

Reason #27: Your Salary Plateaus Early

Your first real raise feels like oxygen. The second is smaller. By year five you are the dependable mechanical engineer who closes DFMEA gaps, babysits packaging drop tests, and herds signatures through ECO gates. The number on your pay stub stops moving like a career and starts moving like inflation, see Reason #18.

The public data tell you why. The median annual wage for mechanical engineers was $102,320 in May 2024, with the top tenth clearing about $161,000 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2025). Electrical engineers report a $111,910 median, electronics engineers $127,590, and chemical engineers $121,860 in the same period. Software developers live on a different curve entirely: a $133,080 median with a 90th percentile above $211,000 (BLS, 2025). The spread matters. For mechanical engineering, the 75th percentile sits around $127,000, which reads like a ceiling you can touch (BLS, 2024). Your raise potential compresses just when your peers’ curves start to pull away.

The structure of the work keeps the lid tight. You are hired into cost centers, not profit centers, so your value is framed as overhead, see Reason #23. When a casting tolerance shifts, a technician shims the fixture to keep the cell alive; you rewrite the validation plan so the data survives review. The vibration rig queue dictates your calendar; your authority extends to the test slot you begged for, not the design decision you would change. See Reason #20 at https://100reasonstoavoidme.blogspot.com/2025/08/reason-20-plant-picks-your-zip-code.html.

Oversupply flattens raises too, see Reason #1 and Reason #24. When new graduates can slot into your seat, managers feel little pressure to bid up your compensation. NACE’s latest update shows engineering starting offers essentially flat for the Class of 2024, up less than one percent, while computer and information sciences remain the top-paid category despite a small dip (National Association of Colleges and Employers [NACE], 2025). That is how a plateau begins.

Early optimism fades in the pipeline. Year after year you push REACH certificates, chase ERP/BOM mismatches, and schedule thermal soaks so a unit can limp through review. Promotions track paperwork ownership, not design authority. If you want real headroom, you often leave mechanical engineering.

You will work harder for smaller increments, and the market will call it normal.

References

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Mechanical engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mechanical-engineers.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Electrical and electronics engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Chemical engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/chemical-engineers.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024). Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2023: Mechanical engineers (percentiles). https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes172141.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm

National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2025). Average starting salary for Class of 2024 shows mild gain. https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/average-starting-salary-for-class-of-2024-shows-mild-gain

Reason #23: You Are a Cost Center, Not a Contributor

Your badge says engineer, your cost code says overhead. The first-time finance walks the floor you learn the hierarchy that matters. Sales is revenue, operations is throughput, you are an expense to be managed. You propose a better bracket; they ask about unit cost and cycle time. You save a line from slipping schedule, the thank you is a reminder to hold the tooling budget flat next quarter.

This is not personal; it is how mechanical engineering is positioned. You live in validation, fixtures, packaging, and release, work that companies file under cost containment rather than value creation. The board is picked, the software is chosen, the suppliers are locked, and you inherit a pile of drawings that need holes moved, threads called out, and a torque table that nobody agrees on. The more disciplined you are, the more invisible you feel, because a perfect day has nothing to show but a green dashboard and a smaller variance. What does that do to your raise conversation.

Being labeled a cost center shapes everything downstream. Your projects are approved when they reduce scrap, shorten test time, or make the same thing cheaper, not when they make a new thing possible. When a fixture slips out of tolerance, a technician shims it and keeps the cell alive, you route the ECO and update the model later, see Reason #16. 

When the plant calls at 5 a.m., you drive in because the product exists where you live, not in a slide deck, see Reason #20.

Cost center status also drags your calendar toward coordination. You sit in three standups to defend capacity and two reviews to defend tolerances. You ship more slides than designs, see Reason #9.

Meanwhile, the programs that earn strategic credit live elsewhere. Budgets and headlines migrate to batteries, chips, and code, see in Reason #7. 

You will work hard, reduce risk, and keep the operation steady. The spreadsheet will still call you a cost to be minimized.

Reason #21: Cost Down Is the Job

Your first performance goal is not invent something, it is remove dollars. You get a number that looks small on paper and huge in tooling, a cost-down target to hit before year end. You change a fastener to a cheaper grade, you shave thickness and promise the test will still pass, you swap a supplier the buyers can process in two hours. The part survives, the margin smiles, the word innovation stays in the slide template.

Most mechanical work is value engineering in plain clothes. You trade stainless for zinc-plated steel and attach a salt-spray chart. You drop an ABEC rating and accept a bushing where a bearing lived. You consolidate fastener lengths so the kit has one size instead of five, then switch to flange bolts to kill the washers. You relax a flatness from 0.05 to 0.10 so grinding disappears, you bump a surface finish from Ra 0.8 to 1.6 so a polishing step goes away, you trim weld lengths and thin a gusset because FEA says it still clears fatigue. You replace a machined spacer with a laser-cut shim stack, you change FKM to NBR and add a line in the temperature table. None of this is glamorous, all of it moves the costed BOM.

What counts as innovation when the goal is pennies? You write the ECO, update the control plan, and paste the before-after rollup so Finance can see the delta. The architecture does not change, the interfaces get cheaper. You want invention, but instead you will find yourself packaging other people’s breakthroughs see Reason #7 and Reason #14

You hit the target, then you get a new target, and that is the plan.

Reason #18: You're Paid Less Than Your Peers

The first thing you notice when you compare offer letters is that your friends in other branches of engineering make more. Electrical, chemical, computer, even civil, their starting salaries pull ahead of yours. You thought mechanical would be “the broadest,” which meant “the safest.” Instead, it meant you were slotted into the lowest-paying tier of the engineering ladder.

This is not an accident. Employers know that mechanical engineering is the most crowded degree pipeline (see Reason #1). They can choose from a glut of résumés, which keeps your wages depressed. As of May 2024, the median annual wage for mechanical engineers stood at $102,320 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024a) whereas Electrical engineers pulled $111,910, and electronics engineers even higher. According to Indeed, in fields like computer science, the gap widens further: mechanical engineers average $85,528, while computer scientists average $108,620.

Meanwhile, software developers, the fucking rock stars of the current economy, average $129,435 a year, with senior roles stretching well beyond that (The Sun, 2024). The difference is not subtle, and it grows as careers progress.

Day to day you will see the gap widen. Electrical engineers at your company sit in fewer meetings and cash bigger checks. Chemical engineers in process industries receive bonuses tied to output, while your role is considered overhead. Software engineers at startups you never heard of jump jobs every two years and double their salaries. You, meanwhile, chase a 3 percent raise that is eaten alive by insurance premiums. By mid-career the discrepancy is glaring. Mechanical engineers plateau while peers in other disciplines keep climbing.

You will find yourself explaining to family members why you are still stuck near the bottom of the engineering pay scale, even after years of experience. And because your title becomes your label (see Reason #15) those same relatives will assume that “engineer” means prestige and prosperity. You will correct them, awkwardly, while your cousin in software drives off in a new car.

It is not that mechanical work has no value. It is that the market has decided it is cheap. And in this field, the market always wins.

You will be an engineer, but you will not be paid like one.

References:

Indeed. (2024). Computer science vs. mechanical engineering: Choosing your career. Retrieved from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/computer-science-vs-mechanical-engineering

The Sun. (2024, April 15). Why are software developers in demand in the USA? Retrieved from https://www.the-sun.com/money/11009009/why-are-software-developers-in-demand-in-the-usa/

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024a, April 17). Mechanical engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mechanical-engineers.htm

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024b, April 17). Electrical and electronics engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm