Also called: Engineering Manager, Process Engineering Manager
Leads the team of engineers who design and improve how a factory makes its products.
Your engineers bring you three ideas to speed up a bottleneck station; you pick one, find the budget and set a deadline. You review new product launches to make sure the factory can actually build them, and you coach young engineers on running their first projects.
Estimated; BLS engineering manager median is higher because it includes all industries.
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 engineering plus years as a manufacturing engineer; master's helpful.
Ways in: 4-year college, Graduate school, On-the-job training. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering.
Growing about average (about 4% over 10 years). BLS projects about average growth for engineering managers.
Low risk in 5 years, medium in 10. AI boosts engineering productivity, so teams may be smaller; leading engineers and plant projects stays human.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Calculus, Business class.
Official data: O*NET occupation 11-9041.
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.