Does anyone know how much the folks at BTC actually get paid?
Do they have a compensation levels like us -CLs?
I’m just curious about what kind of arbitrage might exist there.
Also, what sort of retirement and savings benefits do they offer?
18 replies (most recent on top)
25% is the norm, because it’s alrrady so low plus EM magic of paying lower than average
What are raises going to be? What have they been the past?
@m1 LEFM is easy enough. Things get interesting when you start looking at crack-tip plasticity, creep/fatigue/etc.
Talking about specs and case studies isn’t the same thing as solving complex design problems bruh.
@kh SpaceX outsources most of their advanced engineering work. So do many oil companies for that matter.
@k2 lol I could teach you the finer points of fracture mechanics like I regularly need to explain to the BTC "experts" I have to keep correcting.
Oh you're a spaceX rocket designer. I studied aerospace engineering too buddy. Talk to me when you stop blowing up rockets on the tax payers dime. Unlike you, I can't justify failing until I get my designs right. At least NASA got artemis to launch, circle the moon and return on the first attempt.
Recently I start letting all these centres run on their own. They need to learn how to crawl , walk and run... Maybe eventually they will get better by learning from mistake and building their own experience. They will own their result.
Let them be.
@k2 are you the Tesla/SpaceX/ some super advanced tech propulsion person that boasted on the other thread?
@e1 Mmm…doesn’t sound like engineering work to me. Sounds like business functions with a bit of data crunching. You probably couldn’t explain how the machinery in your plant works without looking it up. In fact, I know you can’t (worked for one of the OEMs you buy from).
Get back to me when you’re the consulting engineer for LRE propulsion system design or tasked with setting up a hot-fire test in less than 36 hours.
One of my favorite BTC experiences goes like this.
Flare project at a USGC site. Told we MUST use BTC for the project, even thought it was a tight window for execution. Gist is all streams must be accurate within some tolerance X%, must be P/T compensated, etc. We have a meeting. We wait the requisite 4-6 weeks to get a set of IFA drawings. The site instrument engineer looks at it for about 30 seconds and points out the accuracy is nowhere near what we told them was required. He sends it back with the correct solution for them to change it to. I assume their second solution made it onto a PowerPoint of BTC ‘wins’ that month.
It hasn’t gotten any better.
So yeah, we cost about four times more. But an experienced site engineer can see a problem that apparently took 4-6 weeks to make in 30 seconds, and devise the correct solution in a couple hours.
@a7 " a4 Can you explain to us what constitutes all of this supposedly advanced engineering work that you do at EMHC?"
a4 here: you sound like someone who has never set foot in an operating facility before. Most of what we do is figure out complex integrity problems against risk/reward of keeping the facility going. Or brownfield optimisation projects. Or ways to maintain integrity with limited budgets or scheduling constraints. or training ops/maintenance crews in new techniques or methodologies that save the company time/risk/money.
But more recently, my time is taken up more and more by another responsibility, that is correcting terrible TC works that come in late, incomplete or otherwise incorrect.
But like I said, won't be my problem for longer...looking forward to watching the fireworks from the outside. Seems like we can just give you the work, right?
@OP about 1/4-1/5 of US salaries. Counting all the benefits, the total would be more like 1/6. They are indeed cheap.
Upstream US bill rate = $450/hr
BTC and KLTC = $75/hr
CL advancement guide is similar, but follows Downstream with capping at 27.
You can use those bill rates and make some good guesses on relative pay. Younger engineers come in cheap ($15k) whereas more experienced get closer to living wage amounts.
Same CL, YEE, Salary Curve
1 US Eng = 3 KLTC/BTC Eng.
Yes BTC are not much cheaper than KLTC on salary, but the infrastructure cost is less and more to choose from.
@a4 Can you explain to us what constitutes all of this supposedly advanced engineering work that you do at EMHC? Last time I checked, all the engineers at large operating companies did was write overlay specs and run vanilla calculations using static spreadsheets. Once in a great while you’ll show up for a commissioning or a customer-observe, where you spend most of the time staring at your phones and eating.
Is the rest of the world missing something?
Work for another major who has offices in India. We are paying about 65% of a U.S. software engineer salary to a SE in Indian office. India is losing cost advantage and the quality of work come out from India is below average when compared to a Western resource. But CEOs and executives will continue to "scam" all in the name of shareholder (more like personal wealth building) wealth. Today's CEOs are getting scammier day by day and are very short term focused. By the time someone will realize this game it would be too late and beyond the point of recovery.
@a3 yeah, the funny money has been a scam but a legal way for corporations to avoid taxes.
Their cost isn't just their base salary. It's the hidden cost of the base engineers time having to correct and redo their work. Usually whilst doing our own.
Looking forward to watching from the outside all the carnage that's going to start from next year when they're unleashed without our supervision or quality control.
Experience hired engineer in BTC, compensation around USD100k. We are not cheap, just less expensive than US folks. We still charge to site USD450 per hour.