EE Salaries Up All Over

The impact of foreign wages that are mere fractions of U.S. salaries is a hot-button topic for both engineers and politicians. But most engineers acknowledge that it's become a factor in their career planning. Americans must look at roles that can't be outsourced easily, such as that of field application engineers. There's been solid growth in this segment of engineering over recent years. FAEs are more and more in demand as companies expect more help from their component and subsystem suppliers. FAEs travel to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and help scaled-down engineering staffs work on complex products while meeting tight design schedules.

”We've got one FAE for every two-and-a-half salespeople. Five years ago, that was one for every five salespeople,” says Phil Gallagher, president of Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas, headquartered in Phoenix, a distributor of semiconductor and other electronic components.

The latest figures from the National Electronic Distributors Association survey showed that FAEs at its member companies received a mean wage of nearly $107 000 in 2004. The lowest FAE salary was $79 400, while the peak earner in the survey made $136 400. Those figures from the Alpharetta, Ga.–based association represented a rise from an average of $96 900 in 2000.

Since many FAEs work closely with sales staffs, many also get significant bonuses. ”Their base salary is on par with product engineers', but they also get bonuses for design wins and bookings,” says Marc Couture, application engineering manager at Mercury Computer Systems' Defense Business Unit, in Chelmsford, Mass.

There are still a few companies where engineers can bank on getting a bonus. AdaCore, a New York City company that specializes in safety-critical certified software for the aerospace industry, uses bonuses to retain its highly specialized, seasoned staff. ”We give engineers an extra month's salary once a year,” says CEO Robert Dewar.

But at most companies, extras are now more of a surprise than an expectation. Watson Wyatt's Patchel notes that companies typically give bonuses only when programs are finished on time or when profits are high. And bonuses are handed out selectively, he adds.

While bonuses are given sparingly, they are still commonplace today compared with stock awards, Patchel adds. The days when most engineers could routinely expect to get stock or stock options died along with the delusion that Internet business plans somehow didn't need profits.

”We want to give equity to people who are improving the bottom line. We've set a high bar, and it's getting higher,” Finger says.

That's a common approach. ”Star players continue to get some form of equity grant, but folks who are good utility players probably won't,” Patchel says.

In some fields, such as defense, equity has never been a part of most engineers' pay plan. After his roller-coaster ride during the dot-com era, Wright notes that at his new company ”there was no discussion of stock whatsoever.” But he draws comfort from a feeling that ”this is a company I can rely on for the future.”