A lot is made of how engineering can be a modestly lucrative career, and indeed for starting salaries it can be quite appealing for new graduates. Other professions like medicine, law, and small business owners can and do pull in more in many cases, but as a fairly low-risk, steady track to a six figure income, engineering is not a bad choice, if one has the right temperament and aptitude. Like any career, don’t go into it for the money if you aren’t otherwise suited for it; you’ll be miserable. But if you happen to take to it, the money doesn’t hurt.
Thinking beyond that to more intangibles however, what are some of the ways an engineering education or mindset prepares one to have a more ‘effective’ income? By that I mean have a net effect on your life that goes beyond the size of the actual paycheck. Let’s consider a few.
Timberland Treadmill to Riches
Low key
Engineers spend their time in the office, sure, but are often in the field, around rotating machinery, grease, arcs, steam, dirt, cement, and other materials that are not conducive to accessories such as ties, cufflinks, dangly jewelry, silk scarves, glossy uncomfortable shoes, and fine suits. Sure, you may dress it up a notch at work; polos and khakis perhaps, maybe a sportcoat for a meeting here or there. Especially at job sites, you will look out of your element by being too dressy, and that carries over a bit to the office, so it’s common for engineers by nature to dress a notch or three below other executive-caliber folks. Ties are ridiculous and after you get one grease spot on your pants, 17 will not make any difference.
So – huge savings! A simple, rugged wardrobe. Carhartts are some of my favorites. Anyone from the Midwest naturally has some plaid flannel shirts for the non-summer seasons. Steel-toed boots. The company t-shirt or polo in the summer (unless clients are in town). No need to keep up with fancy apparel trends, no need for dry cleaning, less gas and hassle. Let’s say one avoids spending $200 a month on such “extras”. You are making good money so that gives you effectively a pretax boost of say 25%. So this might equate to an extra $3000 gross per year – 6% on a $50,000 starting salary. Not bad.
Similar professions – anything techy and blue collar where the work is more important than the sartorial style. Double down if you avoid driving a glitzy vehicle. Super double bonus for professions with uniforms (nursing, military, police, etc).
Figure it out
By nature, you are constitutionally required to analyse and troubleshoot any problem you come across – your boyfriend’s vehicle and the clangery noise he claims it makes, the inert garbage disposal, washer operating at critical speed, etcetera. Sure, this is going to take some investment of your time, and you may not be able to fix 100% of what you encounter. However, something less than hopelessness when faced with simple mechanical, electrical, structural, or chemical issues is going to reap great rewards. Let’s just take a few for a typical year.
- 1 x car minor mechanical (e.g. belts, alternator, plugs, distributor, filters). DIY for at least $200-400 savings.
- 4 x house minor upkeep (e.g. faulty appliance, circuit breaker, vent fan, plumbing). DIY for at least $400 savings.
- 4 x friends’ minor issues you troubleshoot and they are grateful for, $25 equivalent value meal each, $100 savings, feeling of contribution priceless.
If application of your practical knowledge doesn’t result in at least $1000+ savings per year, you’re doing it wrong.
Similar professions – mechanics, electricians, plumbers, farmers, IT professionals. Sometimes we are reluctant to ask our mechanic friends for help though, since we know they are paid for that effort when on the clock. For some reason engineers however are often called upon for semi pro bono work, probably because people know we love trying to solve problems and figure stuff out.
Laws of physics and systems
Through your coursework and practice, you come to understand how systems behave. First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. Kirchhoff’s Laws and Maxwell’s Equations. Free Body Diagrams (always pronounced by one of my best and inspirational professors with the heavy Indian-English accent: fDEE BOHdi DI-a-GDAM). You understand the natural equilibriums that systems must find, and you understand how they react to forces that act to change that equilibrium, such as Newton’s laws of motion or Le Chatelier’s principle.
As a result, you are innately programmed to have a better intuitive feel for how other related systems will behave, either in equilibrium or when faced with stressors. Your personal budget and relationship between income, expenses, and accumulation. Your body and the relationships of nutrition, exercise, and energy. Housing markets, traffic flow, home energy conservation, forestry and logging.
Understanding systems and the key underlying factors that influence them allow you to better evaluate options or scenarios. You are adept with spreadsheets and formulas. Figure out the relative merits of the HSA or PPO plan at work. Roth versus traditional IRA. Variable versus fixed, 15 or 30 year mortgages. Capital and operating costs for the Civic versus Prius. Weatherstripping or a cord of wood.
One wishes more politicians were engineers, as it would then seem more issues could be resolved fairly with a rational appeal to the numbers, rather than ideology. In your personal life however, the same basic discipline that you must apply towards your work (analysis, balance, scenarios) can be applied to avoid circumstances that can trigger high costs: debt, car leases, energy or fuel bills, etc. The annual benefit of this would be more difficult to quantify, but avoiding “imbalances” or non-optimal system configurations (your finances, your vehicles, your home) should be on the order of several thousand dollars per year.
Similar professions – accounting, chemistry, physics teachers. Places where we have objective natural laws to refer to in order to evaluate and resolve disputes, in place of subjective interpretations.
Statistics
Let’s be honest, statistics was NOT my favorite course at the university. But after seeing how it permeates so much of life and our decisions, someone who understand the nature of statistics, uncertainty, scientific studies, Bayesian probabilities, Monte Carlo methods, and the like, is far better equipped to make rational decisions regarding their different options. A rational weighting of probabilities means one is going to buy fewer lottery tickets and gamble less at the casino. Sadly, knowledge of statistics pretty much takes the fun out of casino gambling, but might enhance your desire to polish skills as the card shark at the neighborhood Texas hold ’em game. Day trading starts looking a lot stupider, especially when considering transaction costs. You take a more sanguine approach to the roles and effects of fate, politics, natural catastrophes, and other uncertainties on your life. The benefits of more closely considering statistics in your decisions are again more difficult to itemize, but if avoiding one big ‘stock tip’ misstep saves you $10,000, it’s worth heeding.
You should still enjoy the day
knowing there is a nonzero probability that the lake you hiked to has no fish
Similar professions – actuaries, croupiers, baseball players. In some professions even hitting .300 will get you a million dollar contract.
Summary
The thesis of this post is that an engineer making $50,000 a year who utilizes to good effect their other skills in certain categories, such as staying low key, troubleshooting and fixing stuff, and understanding system statics, dynamics, and statistics, will make more effective decisions, and avoid making more foolish decisions, than someone unequipped with those strengths. The order of magnitude of this effect could easily be 10%+ of your annual income, and that alone could fund a comfortable retirement in your later years.
Caveat: these skills do not take the place of the infinitude of other “hard” or “soft” talents people possess that can increase their effectiveness and life satisfaction: communications, interpersonal skills, entrepreneurship, detachment, charisma, etc. My point in listing these four strengths applicable to engineers is so that they can better recognize how these innate abilities can be better exercised to serve themselves, their families, and society in general.
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