Also called: Senior Staff Mechanical Engineer, Lead Mechanical Engineer
Senior expert who owns the hardest mechanical design calls on big products and mentors other engineers.
You start the morning reviewing a junior engineer's design for a new pump housing and catch a spot where it will crack after a few thousand cycles. After lunch you sit with managers to decide whether a product launch slips a month. Late in the day you sketch a clever fix for a vibration problem nobody else could crack.
Pay for top individual contributors at tech, energy and defense companies can pass $200k.
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 plus 10-15 years of experience; many hold a master's and a PE license.
Ways in: 4-year college, Graduate school, On-the-job training. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Mechanical Engineering.
Growing much faster than average (about 9% over 10 years). Tracks overall mechanical engineering growth.
Low risk in 5 years, medium in 10. AI generates design options and runs checks faster; the hard trade-off calls, mentoring and signing off on safety stay with senior people.
Classes: Physics, AP Calculus, Engineering design CTE, Speech or debate.
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.