Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2007 - (Page 17)

FIGURE 1. Average salary by years of experience. FIGURE 3. Average salary by number of projects undertaken per year. FIGURE 4. Average salary by type of project or technology undertaken. FIGURE 2. Average salary by education level. 2007 respondents based on their educational background, the types of educational programs they continued to be involved in and their actual salaries to get an idea of what is really important. Like nature and nurture, experience and education are the critical foils of successful development in any profession. It was interesting to see how these two factors affected the salary achievements in our respondents. According to the survey, designers with five or less years experience in North America earned the lowest average salary, coming in at just under $40,000. It was interesting to note that with six to 10 years experience, the average salaries jumped to $68,000 equivalent to a 72% increase. This seems to indicate that there is a minimum time-on-the-job milestone on the road to success. As reflected in FIGURE 1, years of experience do influence a designer’s salary, but over time, the rate of increase drops dramatically, so that the difference in the average salary of a designer with over 30 years of experience and that of a designer with 25 to 30 years of experience is minimal. What about education? The results of the survey were actually very interesting in this regard. Only 23.4% of the respondents indicated that they had a bachelor’s, master’s or Ph.D. degree. The majority of designers had either a high school education or had some college without completing a degree; or they had earned a one-or two-year associate’s degree. As reflected in FIGURE 2, the difference between getting a bachelor’s degree in anything other than a BSEE and a high school only education was not a significant factor in the resulting salary. The average salary for a designer who learned on the job with only a high school background was about $70,000 per year. With an associate’s degree, the salary DECEMBER 2007 was still at $70,000. A designer with some college working toward a BA/BS degree earned slightly more at $76,000 average. The BSEE-degreed designer, however, sees a significant increase in earnings with an average salary of over $125,000, and a Ph.D. holder can also anticipate earning a six-figure salary. Higher Salaries for Higher-Tech Designs It was interesting to note that there didn’t appear to be a significant difference between the types of designs being worked on or the number of projects per year as far as salary goes. Designers working on one to 30 design projects per year earned on average $70,000 to $80,000 per year. Those working on 31 to 50 projects per year had a jump to over $100,000 per year on average, but working more than 50 projects per year resulted in a decrease in average salary back to the $70,000 range (FIGURE 3). Likewise, it seemed that it didn’t mater if you were designing single and double-sided boards, or multilayers. The difference in salary was not significant. The average salaries were on track with the overall average of $78,678. FIGURE 5. Type of company. PRINTED CIRCUIT DESIGN & FAB 17

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2007

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2007 Contents Our Line Market Watch Around the World Happenings ROI 2007 PCB Designer Salary Survey Interconnect Strategies Positive Plating RF Design Ad Index Noise Reduction Supply Chain DfM Off the Shelf Marketplace The Signal Doctor

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2007

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