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How come Chemical Engineering is right up the top of earnings? As someone who dropped out of chemical engineering to be a software developer, I clearly made the

by zelos 9y ago

How come Chemical Engineering is right up the top of earnings? As someone who dropped out of chemical engineering to be a software developer, I clearly made the wrong choice ;-)

madengr 9y ago
"As someone who dropped out of chemical engineering.." You answered your own question ;-)
projectileboy 9y ago
In those sorts of charts, chemical engineering typically includes petroleum engineering, which can be pretty lucrative.
- komali2 9y ago
  I have a weirdly specific insight into this. I was an oil and gas recruiter in Houston between 2014-2015... right on the cusp of the most recent O&G price crisis. So I graduate, watch all my engineering friends get nice fat 90k/year or even higher salaries (this is Houston equiv to ~120-130 Bay Area), start buying big trucks, big houses, spending like crazy. My candidates start doing the same, except for the oldest and most experienced, who would always warn about valleys in the field. Lo and behold in 2014 gas prices plummets from something like 100$/barrel to 40, and suddenly almost every single one of my Chem E buddies is out of a job, and all my candidates are getting laid off, and I myself am busting my ass to keep employed because now we have maybe 2-3 jobs popping a month that get instantly targeted by every recruitment firm in the city, let alone thousands of unemployed candidates. Anyway, one of my chem E buddies that was really good at saving money fucks off to SF to do Hack Reactor and has a great time of it. One by one more of my friends do similar, either doing a bootcamp or just jumping straight into automation type jobs. One of them even swapped to patent law. A lot of my candidates start putting things like "python" and "Matlab" on their resumes. Long story short, the O&G industry can make you a lot of money, but it is extremely variable, and you get extremely specialized. A mech E with "rotating equipment" can't do a "static equipment job," according to hiring managers. Chem E can't do liquid natural gas jobs, even if they've got 15 years experience on all sorts of different projects. Etc. A lot of my candidates and friends just decided they'd go for a field with a lower barrier to entry and a much lower barrier for skill transfer. (I did as well in the end)
  - likelynew 9y ago
    Seems like dotcom burst.
throwaway7645 9y ago
Chemical engineering as any engineering field requires rigorous studying and the jobs can be quite demanding (working in plants). It's not uncommon to start at $90k in an area like Houston where that can go a good way. The catch is you get sent all over the world to India...etc. This is for working at a place like Dow.

by zelos 9y ago

How come Chemical Engineering is right up the top of earnings? As someone who dropped out of chemical engineering to be a software developer, I clearly made the wrong choice ;-)

madengr 9y ago

"As someone who dropped out of chemical engineering.." You answered your own question ;-)

projectileboy 9y ago

In those sorts of charts, chemical engineering typically includes petroleum engineering, which can be pretty lucrative.

komali2 9y ago
I have a weirdly specific insight into this. I was an oil and gas recruiter in Houston between 2014-2015... right on the cusp of the most recent O&G price crisis. So I graduate, watch all my engineering friends get nice fat 90k/year or even higher salaries (this is Houston equiv to ~120-130 Bay Area), start buying big trucks, big houses, spending like crazy. My candidates start doing the same, except for the oldest and most experienced, who would always warn about valleys in the field. Lo and behold in 2014 gas prices plummets from something like 100$/barrel to 40, and suddenly almost every single one of my Chem E buddies is out of a job, and all my candidates are getting laid off, and I myself am busting my ass to keep employed because now we have maybe 2-3 jobs popping a month that get instantly targeted by every recruitment firm in the city, let alone thousands of unemployed candidates. Anyway, one of my chem E buddies that was really good at saving money fucks off to SF to do Hack Reactor and has a great time of it. One by one more of my friends do similar, either doing a bootcamp or just jumping straight into automation type jobs. One of them even swapped to patent law. A lot of my candidates start putting things like "python" and "Matlab" on their resumes. Long story short, the O&G industry can make you a lot of money, but it is extremely variable, and you get extremely specialized. A mech E with "rotating equipment" can't do a "static equipment job," according to hiring managers. Chem E can't do liquid natural gas jobs, even if they've got 15 years experience on all sorts of different projects. Etc. A lot of my candidates and friends just decided they'd go for a field with a lower barrier to entry and a much lower barrier for skill transfer. (I did as well in the end)
- likelynew 9y ago
  Seems like dotcom burst.

throwaway7645 9y ago

Chemical engineering as any engineering field requires rigorous studying and the jobs can be quite demanding (working in plants). It's not uncommon to start at $90k in an area like Houston where that can go a good way. The catch is you get sent all over the world to India...etc. This is for working at a place like Dow.