Also called: Vibration Test Engineer, Thermal Vacuum Test Engineer
Shakes, freezes, bakes, and blasts hardware with noise to prove it can survive flight.
You program a shaker table to mimic a rocket launch, bolt a satellite part onto it, and watch accelerometers during the test. Next week it goes into a vacuum chamber.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in mechanical or aerospace engineering.
Ways in: 4-year college. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering.
Growing much faster than average (about 9% over 10 years).
Low risk for 10 years. AI helps plan tests and read data; shaking, baking and freezing real hardware stays hands-on.
Classes: Physics, Electronics CTE, Statistics, Shop class.
Official data: O*NET occupation 17-2141.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.