Manufacturing Engineer Salaries in California. Where do you stand?
Posted February 18th, 2014
Manufacturing engineers plan and design the manufacturing process in an industrial plant. They are involved with the entire manufacturing process – from planning to the packaging of the finished product. They determine the parts and tools needed in order to achieve manufacturing goals according to product specifications; this means working with tools such as robots, programmable and numerical controllers, and vision systems.
They examine flow and the process of manufacturing, looking for ways to streamline production, improve turnaround, and reduce costs. Often, a manufacturing engineer will work with a prototype, usually created electronically with computers, to plan the final manufacturing process. In a globally competitive marketplace, it is the job of the manufacturing engineer to figure out methods and systems to produce a product in an efficient, cost-effective way to provide a marketing edge for the final product.
Manufacturing engineers can find work in most fields of manufacturing – in industry, government, research, service, and consulting. Manufacturing activities contribute more than 12% of the U.S.GDP, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
National Information
According to a salary survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), industrial and manufacturing engineers reported an average starting salary of $57,784 in 2010. NACE also reported that the median-earning half of industrial and manufacturing engineers earned between $53,000 and $62,000 during their first year on the job.
Starting salaries can vary widely depending on which sector of manufacturing a person works in. According to NACE, those in computer manufacturing (which claims almost 38% of science and engineering occupations) reported the highest starting salary of $72,500. This is followed by those in petroleum and coal product manufacturing (who claim almost 15% of science and engineering occupations), who averaged $67,000.
Those in electrical equipment manufacturing (with 12% of all science and engineering occupations) averaged $57,875 their first year. Industrial and manufacturing engineers in food manufacturing reported an average entry-level salary of $55,000. The lowest average starting pay, $50,000, was in paper manufacturing.
Now to the state of California
Within California there is a lot of variation in the salaries for manufacturing engineers. These variations depend on a wide range of factors from population to cost of living to general competitive for open jobs. According to Salary.com, California salaries for manufacturing engineers include:
- Bay Area (Peninsula) – salaries range from $62,700 – $83,200 with an average of $72,000.
- Bakersfield – salaries range from $53,900 with an average of $71,600
- Sacramento – salaries range from $54,500 to $72,400 with an average of $63,500
- LA – salaries range from $56,000 to $74,000 with an average of $65,100
Are you ready to make a switch, and find your next great job! At Bayside Solutions, we pride ourselves at matching our candidates with the best jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area. If you are looking for manufacturing engineering job opportunities in California, contact us today.
