Also called: Thermal Performance Engineer
Squeezes more electricity out of every bit of fuel a power plant burns.
You analyze turbine and boiler data, find that a heat exchanger is fouled and costing $1 million a year, and plan a fix during the next outage.
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 engineering.
Ways in: 4-year college. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering.
Growing much faster than average (about 9% over 10 years). Uses BLS mechanical engineers projection.
Medium risk for 10 years. AI models now tune heat rate and flag efficiency losses, so fewer engineers analyze data; fixes still need people.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Calculus, AP Chemistry.
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.