Starting Salary for 1st Year Engineer

Hi guys
Hope all are doing well
I'm relatively new to myBB. I came across this thread today, any update on salaries posted here, or are they still in the same region.
Reason i'm asking is because I'm finishing my studies this year(BEng Mechatronics) and was wondering what is the starting salary for a first year graduate engineer?

Thanks :)
 
hah said:
Hi guys
Hope all are doing well
I'm relatively new to myBB. I came across this thread today, any update on salaries posted here, or are they still in the same region.
Reason i'm asking is because I'm finishing my studies this year(BEng Mechatronics) and was wondering what is the starting salary for a first year graduate engineer?

Thanks :)
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In engineering?
In finance?
In IT?

Anywhere from R100,000 per year to R350,000 per year
 
JeffreyStal said:
Graduated in 2008 with an Electrical Engineering degree.
Went straight into banking IT as a business analyst at R270k per annum CTC (in 2009).
I now earn around the R560k mark CTC (a couple generous increases and a move between banks hiking up the salary), excluding bonuses.
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Another move (still in financial services, but out of banking) and a big step up the corporate ladder - at just north of R900k pa (now 8 years after graduation)
 
Congrats JeffreyStal on the promotion/move! Still a bit South of that number for my base salary but a lot of my package is bonuses.

I have recently hit management (running a software dev team for a large investment bank) as an elec eng and I regularly review salaries of guys who are earning 900K + CTC. For that though you need to almost be dual skilled, like being a great developer and perhaps having serious quantitative or financial modelling skills. Often though its how the package is structured. For instance the CV's I see from guys working for Duetche, merril lynch, Citibank and the other internationals are all much higher as those companies get penalised more for bonuses. As a result they cut bonuses down and increased base salary to keep staff. Hence you need to be sure what you are comparing.

Still, if you work hard and do good work in the financial industry in SA the salaries tend to be a lot higher than those I see in the salary surveys constantly sent around. Especially in investment banking a good year means a good bonus which means about 60% or so of my annual salary in incentives with a big chunk of that being shares that only get after 3 years (its to keep people around).
 
hah said:
WOW!!! I feel like I studied in the wrong field
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Not necessarily.
Engineers can earn well. Just not necessarily while working in pure engineering, in South Africa.
Those well paying jobs do exist, they're just scarce.
 
JeffreyStal said:
Another move (still in financial services, but out of banking) and a big step up the corporate ladder - at just north of R900k pa (now 8 years after graduation)
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Man, I'm working as a BA in banking IT (as a consultant through my company though), and am not even at what you started with! And that's with around 2 years experience.

Any openings at your company :whistle::D
 
jman said:
Man, I'm working as a BA in banking IT (as a consultant through my company though), and am not even at what you started with! And that's with around 2 years experience.

Any openings at your company :whistle::D
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You should definitely look into moving. Consulting houses have a bad rep for paying crap with no benefits.
 
*Medusa* said:
You should definitely look into moving. Consulting houses have a bad rep for paying crap with no benefits.
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Yeah, charging us out to clients for exorbitant fees, making large profits- not giving us more than 30% or so of that.

I'll look into it after I spend my leave I've accumulated. Just wondering where I should look - perhaps a bank, since I've been involved in one for about a year now
 
The problem with working for a bank is this.. its the golden handcuffs of jobs and you will unlikely move again after that. Reason is they usually offer very competitive sal, interest perks and bank product offerings to retain their good staff which is all fine and dandy but then u start slipping tech wise if u not careful.
 
Brieuse said:
Not sure I could work in a bank
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hah said:
Thinking about it, I understand what you mean. I am much more comfortable when it comes to the engineering environment :)
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I'm not in SA, but I work in finance - the tech here is amazing. I work with far more diverse technologies than I did when I was in the tech industry. There are some really interesting financial problems to solve that require working with pretty exotic technologies - I suggest being more open minded - the culture/environment in these areas also can't be summed up with a stereotype.
 
I realize that I am a few years late, but I'd like to add my view.

In 1936, Dale Carnegie wrote a famous book in the field of communication and soft skills called How to Win Friends and Influence People. He said, and I quote: "The highest paid personel in engineering are frequently not those who know the most about engineering. The person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, assume leadership and to arouse enthusiasm among people – that person is headed for higher earning power."

That was true in 1936, and it is true now. I know many engineers who are earning 60% of what they could be earning; poor networking coupled with an inability to express and present themselves is all that binds them. That is the result of playing Skyrim for 14 hours each weekend instead of interacting with people.

We have a terrible stigma of being bad with people, bad with words and being poorly presented. A wide vocabulary, proper wardrobe, good posture, a focus on articulation, confidence and a sense of humor is going to boost your salary a lot more than engineers would like to admit. I suggest working on those attributes sooner rather than later.

Just my view.
 
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