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Salary Ranges

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Anyone have any recent links to salary ranges for SMT Proces... - Jan 24, 2008 by Flipit

In China they make around $20 per month. Hope that helps. ... - Jan 24, 2008 by Fastek

Is there a need and value to have a Forum section on Careers... - Jan 24, 2008 by Windhorse

I am a SMT Process Engineer and I make $18.85/hour. I think... - Jan 24, 2008 by operator

KRIKIES! At THAT salary, you can not buy or rent decent pro... - Jan 25, 2008 by Chim Richalds

I agree with Shrek, that salary seems really low. The ran... - Jan 25, 2008 by canuck

When I left the industry about 15 years ago in the Bay Area,... - Jan 26, 2008 by Fastek

The CM I work for barely clears 1 million a year. On more t... - Jan 26, 2008 by operator

Back in those days........very few had degrees. Even the eng... - Jan 26, 2008 by Fastek

Hi, my salary is 10k per year.This is Bulgaria, people. a... - Jan 28, 2008 by iv40

I am the manufacturing engineer for a small electronic OEM w... - Jan 28, 2008 by dyoungquist

I think the IPC does an annual survey. Maybe check with the... - Jan 29, 2008 by jdengler

Good ol days are gone boys. ... - Jan 29, 2008 by Sr. Tech

Different companies have different job duties associated wit... - Jan 29, 2008 by operator

I would probably be making ...,... a year if I had a degree ... - Jan 29, 2008 by Sr. Tech

Well, here it is. My responsibilities: 1.All Documentati... - Jan 29, 2008 by operator

Very nice. We had 5 people performing those tasks with a com... - Jan 29, 2008 by Fastek

Thats why your job went overseas.... dog. ... - Jan 29, 2008 by Sr. Tech

I was waiting for that. Actually it was when the US consumer... - Jan 29, 2008 by Fastek

I do all the above and more !! The BOSS won't give me a t... - Jan 29, 2008 by Paul M.

Just make sure you take a pellet gun to the interview and no... - Jan 29, 2008 by hoss67

Dude... That is harsh. I quit the best paying job I had ,at... - Jan 29, 2008 by operator

Yea operator, what's with the disrespect from these little s... - Jan 30, 2008 by Paul M.

Our jobs went overseas because of the american consumer ? ... - Jan 30, 2008 by Sr. Tech

Think Wal-Mart......... ... - Jan 30, 2008 by Fastek

I agree with Fastek. If we (the consumer) go shopping do we... - Jan 30, 2008 by Patrick Bruneel

"They ended up hiring a guy for the going rate around town s... - Jan 30, 2008 by Steve Thomas

+1 Think lowest priced cellphone, audio mixer, handheld G... - Jan 30, 2008 by Steve Thomas

Here're some factoids that'll keep things in perspective: ... - Jan 30, 2008 by Dirk Nuendyke

Steve, I am sure that is true in some instances, but they... - Jan 30, 2008 by operator

I think you mean the Sony PS3?? The Wii is made by Nintendo... - Jan 30, 2008 by James

That's irrelevant to the topic. Incremental technology leaps... - Jan 30, 2008 by Fastek

Yeah CK. Get the lead outta your head! ... - Jan 30, 2008 by Real Chunks

Fastek: Wow, I was 7 when the Atari was released. :-) ... - Jan 30, 2008 by Dirk Nuendyke

Fastek, My prior comment was made sarcastically..... I am a... - Jan 31, 2008 by Sr. Tech

If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em. Anyone up for a "roadtrip" t... - Jan 31, 2008 by mparker

I hear in Shanghai, good working toilets are hard to come by... - Feb 01, 2008 by Dirk Nuendyke

You can always try Greece, instead of flushing toilet paper ... - Feb 06, 2008 by d0min0

Defecation and waste material disposal methodologies vary by... - Feb 07, 2008 by Peter Gibbons

Dem Greeks are famous for all things concerning the southsid... - Feb 07, 2008 by mparker

Flipit

#53354

Salary Ranges | 24 January, 2008

Anyone have any recent links to salary ranges for SMT Process Engineers and Micro Electronics Packaging Engineers.

reply »

Fastek

#53357

Salary Ranges | 24 January, 2008

In China they make around $20 per month. Hope that helps.

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Windhorse

#53358

Salary Ranges | 24 January, 2008

Is there a need and value to have a Forum section on Careers?

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operator

#53359

Salary Ranges | 24 January, 2008

I am a SMT Process Engineer and I make $18.85/hour. I think that is low considering I just turned down a job in Houston that was offering me over 50K for the same position with less reponsibilities. It just comes down to what company you work for and how much profit they are making. I can't complain I have pretty much full reign.

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Chim Richalds

#53375

Salary Ranges | 25 January, 2008

KRIKIES! At THAT salary, you can not buy or rent decent property even on me swamp!

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canuck

#53377

Salary Ranges | 25 January, 2008

I agree with Shrek, that salary seems really low.

The ranges in the SF BAy area are higher of course due to the high cost of real estate. Process Engineers start at 70k and top out at 85k. Same range for Qulaity Engineers and Test Engineers.

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Fastek

#53380

Salary Ranges | 26 January, 2008

When I left the industry about 15 years ago in the Bay Area, good SMT technicians were making $85K per year at OEM's. The process and manufacturing engineers where I worked were all making $125K and more. Real estate was 1/3 the cost it is today. Glad I got out when I did before the CM's of the world swallowed up all the work and dropped salaries down the drain. Sorry for all you guys that never had a chance to work in this industry when there was money to be made in it.

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operator

#53381

Salary Ranges | 26 January, 2008

The CM I work for barely clears 1 million a year. On more than one occasion they had to use their personal funds to make payroll. Our sister company clears over 3million per year. I have been unable to determine what their process engineers are making. I would assume it is somewhere in the $25/hr range. That is something I have been really interested in, but never had the opportunity to find out. It doesn't really matter because the CM I work for could never afford that type of salary for me. These guys pulling these large salaries...did they have degrees? I have no degrees or special schooling. I have 16 years of on the job training. I think I am more than qualified, but employers really like to see degrees before they hand over big salaries.

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Fastek

#53382

Salary Ranges | 26 January, 2008

Back in those days........very few had degrees. Even the engineering managers didn't have degrees. It did begin to shift in the late 90's as I saw many new hires coming out of college with degrees and no experience. Of course they brought nothing to the table and were mostly weeded out after a while.

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iv40

#53388

Salary Ranges | 28 January, 2008

Hi, my salary is 10k per year.This is Bulgaria, people.

all best.

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dyoungquist

#53394

Salary Ranges | 28 January, 2008

I am the manufacturing engineer for a small electronic OEM who also provides EMS for other local electronics companies. We are located in Montana (USA). In 2007 I made 36K. While that seems low, remember that my commute to work is only 10-15 min and I do not have to deal with the problems of crime, traffic, pollution, illegal imigrants, etc. that most big cities have.

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jdengler

#53407

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

I think the IPC does an annual survey. Maybe check with them.

Jerry

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Sr. Tech

#53413

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

Good ol days are gone boys.

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operator

#53415

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

Different companies have different job duties associated with process engineers. Especially small companies. I am curious to hear what you guys think the minimum duties and knowledge are for a process engineer to be considered a process engineer? (Is a MFG Engineer the same as a process engineer?)

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Sr. Tech

#53421

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

I would probably be making ...,... a year if I had a degree to go along with my 18 years of hands on "in the trenches" process experience..??

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operator

#53423

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

Well, here it is. My responsibilities:

1.All Documentation (build packets, processes docs, etc...Even some administrational docs)

2. Oven profiling and everything that goes with it (customer interaction, board& component baking )

3. ESD program etc..

4. Technical contact for customers

5. Program all SMT machines for operators and support

6. Maintainence for all machines

7. Troubleshoot design and test failures with customers from a production standpoint.

8. Order & design all stencils.

9. Anything out of the ordinary comes to me

10. I determine how each assmebly will go thru the process and create new processes as needed.

On top of this I was SMT supervisor and doing all the scheduling of jobs until I told them I could not handle the work load and I had to give those responsibilities to someone else.

So what am I? A process engineer? Are these typical tasks for that position?

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Fastek

#53426

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

Very nice. We had 5 people performing those tasks with a combined salary of perhaps $400K per year or more. The company was making money hand over fist as well.

Our process guys handled all aspects of the process including programming, material and board vendor selection etc.

The manufacturing engineers handled all aspects of equipment selection and higher level repairs as well as equipment vendor interfacing.

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Sr. Tech

#53427

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

Thats why your job went overseas.... dog.

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Fastek

#53433

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

I was waiting for that. Actually it was when the US consumers decided that they wanted their cell phones and computers for free is when the business pretty much died.

We were in the business of making Network Adapter Cards for PC's and selling them for $200 each. Of course in those days a decent computer cost around $2,000. We ran 24/7 and the company was making millions of dollars PER DAY. We had the best engineers and techs money could buy because when those lines went down it cost the company big time per minute.

There were other companies like this one......Moto, IBM, Ericsson, Nokia to name a few.

Ah..the good ole days!

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Paul M.

#53434

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

I do all the above and more !!

The BOSS won't give me a title, seems to think it will limit my "other duties as assigned" bull-sh*t.

I just got my stinkin miniscule salary cut by 10% AND my bennies cut by 50 friggin percent !!

My friend that works for the State feeding frikin fish makes more than I do as a "Process Engineer" at this sweat-shop.

There closing EMS's left and right around here !!

Passive aggression is not working. The BOSS is to good at it. I can't lower myself to his tactics.

Time to tell the BOSS to stick it.

Time to move on.

Time to apply for a job at Wally World.

Oh well........ sigh.

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hoss67

#53435

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

Just make sure you take a pellet gun to the interview and not a real one. Say hi to John Candy for me.

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operator

#53441

Salary Ranges | 29 January, 2008

Dude... That is harsh. I quit the best paying job I had ,at that time, because the owners disrepected me over my deserved salary. I was the sole programmer at this little shop that for some reason lasted for years after I was gone, but anyway....Other programmers/machine operators around town were making like 5 dollars more an hour than I was starting pay. I was their go-to guy and I trained all the other operators. They were paying me scraps. It was raise time and I asked for a couple dollar raise. Not even close to what other guys were making around town...These guys had the balls to tell me since I wasn't programming all the time I didn't deserve programmers pay. I was so offended that these cheap bast*rds would say such a thing that I put in my notice. Ofcourse they came back and said they would give me what i wanted, but I told them to shove it. I had put 3 years of my life into that business and they come at me with that sh*t. I quit anyway. They ended up hiring a guy for the going rate around town so they shot themselves in the foot. Not quite sure how this fits into this thread...just wanted to share.

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Paul M.

#53445

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Yea operator, what's with the disrespect from these little sweat-shop owners? There on some kind of wierd power trip.

Like want-a-bees that never have been.

The IDIOT-BOSS-OWNER here reminds me of satan.

I would tell him to go to hell, but he's already there....

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Sr. Tech

#53446

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Our jobs went overseas because of the american consumer ?

reply »

Fastek

#53449

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Think Wal-Mart.........

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Patrick Bruneel

#53453

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

I agree with Fastek. If we (the consumer) go shopping do we care more about the country of manufacturing than the pricetag?

My family does but too many times they come to me and say �sorry we couldn�t find anything made in USA� only designed in USA but made (in the you know which countries).

We consumers have the power to make change, but as fastek says we buy the cheapest. And with our middle class almost wiped out its not going to get better.

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Steve Thomas

#53454

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

"They ended up hiring a guy for the going rate around town so they shot themselves in the foot."

Well, except that now they have a happy employee and before they didn't. Not criticising, just pointing out a different perspective. Sometimes they'll pay whatever it takes to get rid of someone that rocks the boat, and there isn't much that can be done about it by the rocker.

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Steve Thomas

#53455

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Think lowest priced cellphone, audio mixer, handheld GPS, programmable universal remote, PDA, etc., that has every possible feature and does everything except mix your drink for you, crammed into that cheap crappy plastic molded case that shatters into a zillion pieces if you drop it.

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Dirk Nuendyke

#53460

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Here're some factoids that'll keep things in perspective:

* In October 1977, the Atari 2600 VCS was released with a retail price of $200.

* What cost $200 in 1977 would cost $684.25 in 2006.

* The Sony Wii retails for roughly $429 in 2008.

* Sony Wii has thousands of times the computing power as the Atari 2600 VCS.

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operator

#53465

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Steve,

I am sure that is true in some instances, but they begged me to stay. More than once. The guy they got ended up s*xually harrassing and scaring most of the female employees and they eventually had to fire him because female employees were quitting because of him. It's terrible, but I really enjoyed hearing about it after I was gone. They closed down a year or two ago. This place was running Quad 100's!!!! They had 3 of them. I had convinced them when I was there to upgrade to a 4C. Then they went off on their own and got this Mamiya from hell. Like I said I have no idea how these guys stayed in business. Just goes to show you don't have to be a rocket scientist to make money in this industry. They must of had some talent being able to stay open for so many years with Quad 100's. I can still hear those things move....Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz....chi-cluck..........Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz........chi-cluck.

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James

#53467

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

I think you mean the Sony PS3?? The Wii is made by Nintendo and retails for $249.

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Fastek

#53468

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

That's irrelevant to the topic. Incremental technology leaps have occured in everything from automobiles to garden rakes since 1977. But thanks for mentioning Atari as I worked there back in those days.

The issue is this: If you took a poll of Americans and gave them the choice to buy a Wii made overseas for $429 or the same thing but built in the US for $729, I would bet 95% would choose the cheaper one. People complain about the lost jobs in America but all I see is the American consumer and all of these huge wildly successful mega-store concepts like Wal-Mart, Loews, Target and Home Depot being built. With all of them filled with cheap overseas crap that lasts about 2 months AND I might add at the expense of the local, neighberhood Mom and Pop hardware store..........who's been in business since 1914 but now can't even make $100 per day and is now forced to go out of business.

Yeah.....it's easy to complain about the lost jobs in this country and I'm sure a certain political party will attempt to make a big deal of it throughtout this election year. Don't buy it........Washington isn't the problem. Your neighbor is the problem.

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Real Chunks

#53469

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Yeah CK. Get the lead outta your head!

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Dirk Nuendyke

#53470

Salary Ranges | 30 January, 2008

Fastek:

Wow, I was 7 when the Atari was released. :-)

Anywho.... GUILTY AS CHARGED! I have lots of electronics in my house... the big screen LCD HD, Upconvert DVD player, 2 laptops, 2 PC's, etc..etc... If things WERE made in the US of A, we'd prolly still be using TV's with the knobs and rabbit ears, and a 286 PC would cost 2 grand....

who's fault IS this? Yeah, I b*tch about crap made in China too, and guess what??!! All this outsourcing bull$*(* also affects my livelihood and ability to feed my family...and yeah, I b1tch about it, but yet, I also consume, consume, consume...

Not sure what the future is...not sure who can fix it....not sure what America will specialize in...fast food? malls? Walmarts? Starbucks? Consumption??..in fact, US is even outsourcing RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT for crying out loud!!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sun_argonne_0120jan20,0,1456861.story?coll=chi_business_head_1

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Sr. Tech

#53476

Salary Ranges | 31 January, 2008

Fastek, My prior comment was made sarcastically..... I am aware whats happening/happened....

Perhaps one day it will turn around.

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mparker

#53496

Salary Ranges | 31 January, 2008

If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em. Anyone up for a "roadtrip" to Shanghai?

I'll drive, everyone chips in on "necessaries", one helluva adventure.

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Dirk Nuendyke

#53515

Salary Ranges | 1 February, 2008

I hear in Shanghai, good working toilets are hard to come by, and you gotta make pooh-pooh in a hole.

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d0min0

#53568

Salary Ranges | 6 February, 2008

You can always try Greece, instead of flushing toilet paper along with your pooh-pooh - you put it in the basket right beside your left leg, pretty freaky ehhh? :-)

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Peter Gibbons

#53591

Salary Ranges | 7 February, 2008

Defecation and waste material disposal methodologies vary by culture.

Has anybody done a "white paper" on this? (lol)

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mparker

#53594

Salary Ranges | 7 February, 2008

Dem Greeks are famous for all things concerning the southside, ya know?

reply »