1. How To Make Money As A Mechanical Engineer
2. How Can A Mechanical Engineer Earn Money Online
3. How To Earn Money As A Mechanical Engineer

The median pay for mechanical engineers in 2017 was $85,880 per year, or about $41 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the typical entry-level education required is a bachelor’s degree. There were 288,800 mechanical engineering jobs in the U.S., with a projected job growth rate of 9 percent through 2026, in 2016, the last year the BLS counted.

Not a bad salary or growth prospects, but there are always ways for mechanical engineers to increase their salaries. Most approaches require planning and a significant investment in time, money, and education, as well as excellent communication and sometimes negotiation skills.

Here are a few of the best ways to start boosting your engineering salary.

1) Earn a Master’s Degree

A master’s degree is increasingly required to advance into higher-paying supervisory and management roles. It sharpens your technical skills and can establish you as an expert in a hot field, such as additive manufacturing and 3D printing. “Becoming a technical expert in a particular industry or product will command a higher salary than being a generalist engineer,” says Tom Goettl, vice president and principal recruiter for Konik PrimeStaff, a leading engineering recruiting company based in Edina, MN.

For You: An Engineering Education Should Never End

As a mechanical engineer who has an idea about generators, going into generator sales is a very good business idea that will bring you lots of money if well thought out. Ensure you draft a business plan that will act as a guide for you before starting the business. Tutoring Business.

2) Earn an MBA

If you are interested in management opportunities, a Master of Business Administration degree might be the best approach. An MBA is ideal for mechanical engineers with an aptitude for business management. “The skills that come with an MBA enable engineers to be promoted into business oversight roles,” Goettl says.“They will learn, for example, how to tie profit and loss statements from the entire company into an engineering department and how every department’s performance affects the company bottom line.”

He does caution that management is not always a good fit for engineers.

“Many great engineers move into management roles only to learn afterwards that they dislike holding others accountable, or coaching and leading teams,” he says.“You don’t want to spend the rest of your career in a role you’re not passionate about simply because the pay is a bit higher.”

3) Become a PE

Professional engineers (PE) tend to move into higher-paying supervisory and management jobs than non-PEs because only PEs can sign and seal engineering drawings or serve as a fully qualified expert witnesses. Obtaining a PE license shows you are serious about your profession and are part of an elite group of engineers. Also, an increasing number of government agencies, educational institutions, and private-sector clients prefer to only work with licensed professional engineers.

4) Internal Development Opportunities

Does your company have upcoming special projects such as a system conversion, or need someone to travel for a customer visit? Volunteering for these projects will be remembered in your next merit review.

“Employees who are viewed as helping out wherever needed will be looked at for future promotions and salary increases,” Goettl says. “These projects will also stretch your technical abilities such as coding, Excel, and project management. In the event of a company layoff, you’ll either be irreplaceable at your current company, or much more attractive to another.Your proven ability to help out wherever needed will be taken into consideration in your next salary discussion.”

5) Change Your Engineering Industry

According to the BLS, the median annual wages in 2017 for mechanical engineers in the top industries were:

How To Make Money As A Mechanical Engineer

A simple shift from machinery manufacturing to scientific R&D (such as robotics, medical devices, pharmaceutical), for example, can earn an ME an extra $21,000 per year.

6) Change Your State

Pay levels from MEs vary widely from state to state. States that have reputations for high-tech fields like aerospace, defense, biotechnology, robotics, IT, and biomedicine have average salaries close to $100,000 (Massachusetts $96,010; Maryland $104,250; Virginia $100,850; California $104,030). An engineer can get a big salary bump just by moving one state over. An ME in Iowa, for example, earned an average of $74,120 in 2017, one of the lowest salaries in the country. But next door in Illinois the average salary for an ME was $92,040. Earning that extra $18,000 a year over a 30-year time period equates to about $540,000.

7) Ask for a Raise

Getting more money could be as easy as asking for a raise, especially if you know you are underpaid or have performed especially well. But this, as you can guess, can be a stressful process. According to Huffington Post article How to Ask for a Raise in 2018, key factors are doing salary research for your market, being prepared, and keeping expectations realistic. Most annual raises are between 1 and 5 percent. Also consider asking for a bonus when asking for a raise.

How Much $$$?

Exactly how much of an increase will these extra efforts have on your base salary? In most cases, mechanical engineers who obtain a Master’s, MBA, or PE can expect a 10 percent to 15 percent increase in their salaries. An engineer with an MBA may also be a strong future candidate for the role of engineering director or vice president of engineering.

“Once you’ve volunteered for special projects and proven you’re a strong asset to the company, merit increases will be higher as well,” Goettl says.“Typical merit increases are 2 to 5 percent and those with stronger reviews will be rewarded on the higher end of that range. Also, keep in mind that next year’s merit increase will be based off your higher salary, so after a few years, the extra initiatives you’ve taken on can really pay off in the long run.” Mark Crawford is an independent writer.

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Freelance Engineering? There’s a Site for That

Words and job duties like instrumentation, automation, implementation, and design, play an important part in the life of a mechanical engineer. It is probably the most pursued engineering field in developing countries like India. With the advent of newer machinery, the need for mechanical engineers only increases. Whether you are a full time employee, looking to earn a few extra bucks by the side, or you are a self-employed engineer simply trying to get your business up and running, there is much scope in freelance mechanical engineer.

You can opt for freelance for many different reasons. Extra income, work from home, be able to take on multiple tasks, independence; the list continues. Whatever your preferences, you can be assured that freelance mechanical engineer is a career that will give you a comfortable life, and a low pressure, low stress working environment.

Freelance Mechanical Engineer Job Duties:

Your duties as a mechanical engineer would revolve around building mechanical equipment. For instance, an organisation that makes mechanical products may contract you to design a product, or even test and provide specifics for the product. Let us have an in-depth look at some of the duties that will fall under your purview, as a freelance mechanical engineer:

• Read and interpret blueprints, technical drawings, schematics, and computer-generated reports.
• Liaise and confer with engineers and other personnel to implement operating procedures, resolve system malfunctions, and provide technical information.
• Research and analyze customer design proposals, specifications, manuals, and other data to evaluate the feasibility, cost, and maintenance requirements of designs or applications.
• Specify system components or direct modification of products to ensure conformance with engineering design and performance specifications.
• Research, design, evaluate, install, operate, and maintain mechanical products, equipment, systems, and processes to meet requirements, applying knowledge of engineering principles.
• Investigate equipment failures and difficulties to diagnose faulty operation, and to make recommendations to maintenance crew.
• Liaise with drafters and monitor them in developing the structural design of products using drafting tools or computer-assisted design/drafting equipment and software.
• Provide feedback to design engineers on customer problems and needs.
• Oversee installation, operation, maintenance, and repair to ensure that machines and equipment comply with specifications.
• Supervise and conduct research that tests and analyzes the feasibility, design, operation, and performance of equipment, components, and systems.
• Recommend design modifications to eliminate machine or system malfunctions.
• Develop and test models of alternate designs and processing methods to assess feasibility, operating condition effects, possible new applications, and necessity of modification.
• Develop, coordinate, and monitor all aspects of production, including selection of manufacturing methods, fabrication, and operation of product designs.
• Estimate costs and submit bids for engineering, construction, or extraction projects, and prepare contract documents.
• Perform personnel functions, such as supervision of production workers, technicians, technologists, and other engineers, and design of evaluation programs.
• Establish and coordinate the maintenance and safety procedures, service schedule, and supply of materials required to maintain machines and equipment in the prescribed condition.
• Study industrial processes to determine application areas of the equipment.
• Write performance requirements for product development or engineering projects.

Freelance Mechanical Engineer Skills:

What sets you apart from other engineers is skill. You need to be skilful to hold a candle to competition. Although, you shall generally be required to design, implement, and even test mechanical equipment, the job role will often demand more from you than an implementation and design process. You need to develop skills to do well; some of them include:

• Mathematical skills
• Complex Problem Solving
• Critical Thinking
• Scientific Skills
• Decision Making
• Operations Research
• Operations Analysis
• Coordination
• Active Learning
• Self-motivated
• Able to work remotely
• Systems Analysis
• Equipment selection

Many websites will help you develop the above-mentioned skills. However, you must remember that mechanical engineering is a graduate level course and any skills you learn here should be supplemented with a degree. MIT Open Courseware, Udacity, Coursera, Freestudy and Brighthubengineering offer many options to learn mechanical engineering online.

Being Successful As A Freelance Mechanical Engineer:

More often than not, talent is not a determinant of success in any sphere. It is possibly truer for engineers, with the freelance market insisting that talent combined with the relevant experience attracts generous prospective employers.

Hence, to be successful initially, you could:

How Can A Mechanical Engineer Earn Money Online

• Offer to do projects for minimum fees, sometimes for free
• Bid the lowest for a project on freelancer portals
• Get good testimonials for guest blogs, recommendations for work
• Start a blog, back link it to more visible blogs
• Create a website, or at the very least, a web page
• Advertise your services on social media platforms
• Understand the product or service intimately
• Sharpen your Communication skills, as it would help you get more jobs
• Master Engineering Basics

Freelance Mechanical Engineer Payment:

Most of the revenue generated by you will depend solely on your ability to market your services and your credibility with previous employees.

Usually freelance portals offer various kinds of payment models. In the fixed-price model, the price is usually pre-determined. The hourly model is the most popular and employers usually pay a predetermined sum per hour. Finally, in the project-budget based model, you often need to auction for such projects. Usually a fixed price model may range from $20- $200 and upwards, while you have to pitch for hourly projects, and budget payments, which usually range from $5- $35 an hour, with average payments at $23 per hour.

Finding Work:

Many websites, forums, and portals offer hundreds of jobs to freelance mechanical engineer like you. Elance, Odesk, Peopleperhour and Guru offers many mechanical engineer work opportunities to freelance mechanical engineers around the globe.

Resources:

However, you must remember that mechanical engineering is a graduate level course and any skills you learn here should be supplemented with a degree. MIT Open Courseware, Udacity, Coursera, Freestudy and Brighthubengineering offer many options to learn mechanical engineering online.

For more information on Freelance Mechanical Engineer please visit www.careerlancer.net

How To Earn Money As A Mechanical Engineer

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