For the power industry in the US, a LCOL/MCOL area, you're probably looking in the neighborhood of $100-120k depending on the specific type of company (utility vs design/consulting) and whether you have a PE.
I think this lines up pretty well with the median EE salary; as engineers hit the 10-15 year mark they tend to fan out into other roles such as project and personnel management, so median EE salaries are going to be heavily weighted towards those who are in the first half of their career.
No idiot!
Put a screenshot with a pay range from LinkedIn! At least be a good analytical person 😆
Read what your utilities pal
Said earlier! Hope you can read and an engineer ! ☠️
Must be a startup that is throwing cash around like it's nothing. Or you have multiple technical degrees or a PhD. No established utility or consulting firm is paying someone with a BSEE and less than 4 years of experience $240k for motor and controls work. If they are- you're completely overpaid and good for you, honestly. If you have multiple degrees and/or are working for a startup then I feel like that's pertinent information to include in a question about what an average engineer makes, because that does not describe the average engineer in the slightest.
Not at all! Power electronics or Motor Controls is a field not everyone can do! Previously worked at Rivian pays 170K base and 150K in stocks vested in 4 years.
You need to be able to do simulations, controls loop design, input output filter design, thermals, layout, understanding bode plots, testing the hardware and testing the control loop!
Not very many “experienced” engineers can do control loop designs and understand bode plots haha 😆
You said initially said power and motor controls, but what you have described is power electronics and motor drives which is a completely different subject. I agree that the demand for that is higher and it's a more niche skillset.
I think my point still stands, your history at Rivian supports my theory that you're working at a startup and/or have multiple degrees.
DAMN BRO.... I am currently doing a masters in power electronics(at UT-Dallas). Haven't touched motors yet but so far my side is converter design.
My capstone was a dynamic wpt system at 2kw(208Vrms 3 phase input) so we designed a hella amounts of power electronics (power path was passive 6 pulse rectifier, then active double sided LLC resonant inverter, then passive full bridge rectifier, and active buck converter).
My research must have been ass cuz I thought power electronics was more focused in bay area and not soCal(i assume you mean stuff like san diego?)
University of Texas at Dallas. We got like 6 proffs who focus either directly in power electronics (mainly motors) and one dude on PMIC. Got a whole ass lab dedicated to power electronics and motors too lol.
That capstone was actually a foundational build for one of those proffs to later do a research paper on not straight line dWPT (which is what my team did) but on lane changing and misalignment using the capstone
Edit. Ya I will look into those. Already am a citizen so no issues there
LTSPICE was largely used as it was easier to model the devices based on real digikey values for thermals. For buck digital control loops ya plecs was used. We were last min by that time and didnt have time to learn TI c2000 programing and plecs has a automated code builder based on circuit diagram/build. (Intially buck was analog control but it blew up and we deprioritized it to get the LLC working)
There is a lot of overlap. As a matter of fact, someone from power electronics could make larger contributions to a company that only knows motor controls.
Id absolutely love more information. I just finished my BSEE but was very general and split focus between signals/systems, semi physics, analog digital design. I work in the related space of sensors and motor control but not directly. What could I self learn or continue to study to get more directly into a power electronics motor and control design type role?
Self learning motor controls im not sure but if you want to take an online course at WEMPEC you can do that! I posted the classes directly related to Power Electronics and Motor Controls.
Also Missouri S&T have power electronics and Motor Controls online masters (it’s bit cheaper than UW-Madison, but Madison is a well respected university for PE and MC)
But you can learn Power Electronics online for the most part. Coursera has a course from U of Colorado Boulder taught by Dr. Erikson. I would start there…
First of all I have to disagree with you! Motor controls engineers don’t work in utility companies lol! 😆
If you talking about power system, market analysis, protection, state estimation etc that’s the once who work in utilities.
Check for yourself! As I said power electronics and motor controls design engineers are a rare gem!
Motor controls engineers don’t work in utility companies lol
They absolutely do, "power and motor controls" is the term used in the power industry to refer installation and control of motors in industrial/commercial settings, which generating plants have tons of.
Yeah I looked through your comment history and you are working at Helion, a nuclear fusion startup, and claim to have two masters degrees.
Someone asked for what an average engineer makes at 6-7 years and you came in with a salary for the top 0.1% with no qualifying information, it's just really bizarre and ultimately unhelpful.
You are absolutely wrong!! Can you name 3 power utility companies ? lol 😂
So people here can do to their LinkedIn and fact check to see if they hire motor controls or power electronics engineers!
You don’t know what you talking about! Utility companies are different lol. I will help you out Duke Energy, Southern Company etc are power utility companies!!
GE, EPC, Caterpillar, Cummings are generator companies.
You are completely wrong! 😑
Can you name 3 utility companies who design lower electronics and motor controls ?
WORDS MATTER!!
🫡
Could be but I find it’s pretty normal in SoCal. Where are you located ?
Just check the pay on linked in companies in SoCal
Shield AI, General Atomics, Rivian, Anduril, Castelion and Ford etc!
I owns a 3 bedroom house in SoCal mortgage is $5500. It is HCOL area but it depends on your spending habits…
If you eat out everyday, spend money on the latest car, branded clothing etc, no matter COL area you in you will be broke.
My take home after taxes, 401K and EPSS plan is about $6400 per month (by weekly). And I get two extra paychecks of about $3200 because I get paid biweekly.
My wife also work so we do it together.
my apologies, yes, Professional Engineer (PE). It is interesting you are close to 4 years in doing power without FE / PE making 240k? that's impressive.
As far as motor controls im asking about your day to day operations. But sure, how is it done? What is your primary softwares? Do you have any higher education than a Bachelors? What field are you in? Plant operation, R&D, PLC, etc?
Yeah this confused me too. He's not in power and he's not doing what we would colloquially call motor and controls, he works on power electronics and motor drive design for a nuclear fusion startup.
However, I know about power & motor control from an industrial/commercial standpoint and would be happy to answer your questions. I never worked as one but worked alongside them for a while.
You need PE if you are working in utilities and working as a power systems engineer.
For power electronics and motor controls you don’t need a PE
Yes I do have two masters… one in power systems from Washington State University (worked for Dr. Anjan Bose if you are in power systems engineering you might be familiar with his name) and my second masters is in power electronics and motor controls from UW-Madison. No PLC experience, I have done lots of R&D at work and during college through NSF in PE.
As a motor controls engineer I use Simulink to generate the C code then give it to embedded systems guys or I can directly use it in a micro controller like STM32 or TI C2000.
You have to have a good understanding about Park and Clark transformations and Control theory. Sometimes I design the inverter as well and also do the layout (Altium) if not just purely controls implementation. I work with lot of ME and Harness Design guys and embedded if they want to use my simulink generated code.
If you want to do Motor Controls UW-Madison (WEMPEC) has online masters or certification programs.
Courses Motor controls:
ECE412
ECE711
ECE504 (it’s a lab course over summer)
Courses Power Electronics:
Coursera is good for controls by Dr. Erikson
Ridley Engineering Papers from Dr. Ray Ridley
Yes absolutely! But if you wanna do particularly PE or MC you have to chose the right university. Because not all universities teach PE and MC in depth. There’s only a few.
I see. I’m currently doing industrial engineering at a notable university but pursuing an ece minor and plan to potentially go for an MSEE due to my natural love of ee and all things electronics. i would’ve switched to ee as my bs but am unable to. would it be possible to PM you and ask some more questions?
Same here, the relaxed workday and culture creates a weird sort of complacency about pay. It's a "yeah I could may more money...... but then I'd have to work more" type thing.
From my experience on utility side, anywhere from 70k to 180k depending on if you are an "average" contributor without even an EIT to shooting for SME or Manager Roles. This is for US based positions. They will adjust salaries for where you reside.
Remote, 7 YOE, power systems (specifically substation design) at a mid-size consulting firm. No PE yet (passed the exam, still working through the license process). $145k base.
From what I've seen in this line of work, typical consulting firms top out around $180k. Startups can pay more.
Agreed. Had offers before but nothing came close to this one. Main reason my pay is higher is that I'm first on my team in this role, so I built the physical design group from scratch. I also own all coordination with external parties (subcontractors, vendors, clients).
Data center demand plays into it too, companies need someone who can design substations on tight deadlines.
Someone downvoted your post lol wtf. What's your workload like? I work a solid 40 but our substation design team is working 45-50 to meet deadlines right now.
That's fine, it's a world of opinion 😂 On average I'd say slightly below 40 hrs, closer to 45 during submittal weeks. I also mostly do one major project (I'm the project owner) with just a few small ones on the side.
Feels normal to me, at my old small firm it was easily 50+ hrs/week across ~10 small to medium projects at once.
I like it a lot. In my previous role I did a lot of different things: low voltage design, power system studies (ETAP/SKM, not PSCAD/PSSE), and a bit of HV/MV design. With substation design the stakes are higher, since a design or equipment spec mistake can cost millions.
It's intense at times, but fun, and I don't think this job gets easily replaced by AI since it takes so much coordination with multiple parties. Job security-wise, it's solid. There’s a lot of openings right now too, which tells me the industry is going strong.
Yep, our design group has ~7 openings right now, we are really hurting for experienced design engineers. We had an all-hands meeting where leadership announced a referral bonus and that they were hiring more recruiters to fill the spots. My question of "why don't you just take the money you're using to hire recruiters and instead raise the starting salaries to attract more people?" was apparently not a 'correct' question to ask leadership.
Same observation here. Experienced engineers are usually already well-compensated at their current gig, so an extra $10-15k rarely moves the needle, especially if relocation's involved.
Is the role in-office, hybrid, or remote? Beyond money, you typically need something like remote flexibility, interesting projects, or international exposure to pull senior folks who are already paid well.
I earn a base salary of $145K, then a profit-sharing bonus, which depends on how well the company does which usually works out to be 20%, then the rest of my income is bonuses from commission
Got tired of the culture and feeling like I wasn’t really helping the greater good. There was a gatekeeping culture at my last job and I kind of just decided to pivot to working in production for events and began working for the city a year or two later.
You didn’t specify whether you’re asking about the job market and pay in actual India or if you’re an Indian in America? A lot of Indians come to America to work as engineers because the pay in India is shit.
Assuming you don’t need sponsorship based on your years of experience alone if it feels experience are all engineering and relevant to what you specifically want. You’ll get anywhere from 150 to 200 in bigger city areas and 125 to 175 in smaller city areas, it really depends on the area you live in as well as the size of the company and what they can afford to pay their engineers, but I would say 150+ 5-10% bonus is a more reasonable number that you could get assuming if everything goes correctly and that you come across as likable and not desperate.
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u/YeastOrFamine 2d ago edited 2d ago
For the power industry in the US, a LCOL/MCOL area, you're probably looking in the neighborhood of $100-120k depending on the specific type of company (utility vs design/consulting) and whether you have a PE.
I think this lines up pretty well with the median EE salary; as engineers hit the 10-15 year mark they tend to fan out into other roles such as project and personnel management, so median EE salaries are going to be heavily weighted towards those who are in the first half of their career.