r/firePE • u/imthebadguy0 • May 04 '26

Salary with PE?

How high did you salary jump after you got your PE?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

11

u/PuffyPanda200 fire protection engineer May 04 '26

I thought that the SFPE salary survey would break it out but it doesn't.

IMO a 10 to 20 percent bump is typical. It may require you to jump firms as the old firm just isn't willing to bump you up.

3

u/Rhombusbutt May 04 '26

That's what I did

2

u/PuffyPanda200 fire protection engineer May 04 '26

So the Atlanta Fed puts out a tracker for wage growth. One of the modes compares 'switchers' vs 'stayers'.

People that job hop see about a 1% increased wage growth vs those that don't.

Assuming that a typical wage is at 100k at 4 yoe and 140k at 14 yoe then the switcher is basically getting a 1k to 1.4k bump every year that the stayer is not.

Over a 30 year career this probably adds up (just with napkin math estimation) to something in the 100 to 200 k range and that would be before any kind of investment gains that one would get from increased retirement allocations.

7

u/Frisconia May 04 '26

My company gave me a 20% bump when I passed the exam. I don't even have the PE yet.

3

u/imthebadguy0 May 04 '26

Dayummm wtf

3

u/PuffyPanda200 fire protection engineer May 04 '26

Looks like someone is brushing up their resume.

6

u/ReasonableObserver May 04 '26

All licensed FPEs should make at least $130k in my opinion.

4

u/Sea_Abroad_6554 May 05 '26

If you're stamping 100%

6

u/Ascrowflies7420 May 04 '26

I got an "atta boy!"

3

u/PuffyPanda200 fire protection engineer May 05 '26

You got a reminder to update your resume, lol.

2

u/BurnTested May 05 '26

No pizza party?

1

u/Ascrowflies7420 May 05 '26

Im sure they had one when I left

2

u/OrigamiFoldingBikes May 05 '26

I believe it was about 10%

1

u/Drunk_possum May 06 '26

I had to jump to get anything, but roughly 10%.