Automation Engineer
Career Area: Information Technology
Occupation Group: Network and Systems Engineering
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Automation Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $97,210
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $99,393
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Develops and implements testing strategies and toolsets with the goal of increasing process automation. Establishes appropriate measures to validate and report on software quality. Designs and implements test automation to improve system reliability and stability. Designs and supports frameworks for test infrastructure. Provides automation expertise and mentoring.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 680 | +2.6% |
| Nationwide | 12999 | +5.3% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Automation Engineer is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
- Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Python: Python is a widely used high-level programming language for general-purpose programming, created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991.
- Java: Java is a set of computer software and specifications developed by Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by the Oracle Corporation, that provides a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment.
- Software Development: Software development is the process of computer programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications and frameworks resulting in a software product.
- SQL: SQL ( ESS-kew-EL or SEE-kwl, Structured Query Language) is a domain-specific language used in programming and designed for managing data held in a relational database management system (RDBMS), or for stream processing in a relational data stream management system (RDSMS).
- Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Automation Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Automated Testing: Working experience of Automated Testing. In software testing, test automation is the use of special software (separate from the software being tested) to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes.
- Debugging: Debugging is the process of finding and resolving of defects that prevent correct operation of computer software or a system.
- Bash: Bash is a Unix shell and command language written by Brian Fox for the GNU Project as a free software replacement for the Bourne shell.
- Configuration Management: Configuration management (CM) is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.
- Chef Infrastructure Automation: Working experience with Chef, which is a configuration management tool written in Ruby and Erlang. It uses a pure-Ruby, domain-specific language (DSL) for writing system configuration recipes. Chef is used to streamline the task of configuring and maintaining a companys servers, and can integrate with cloud-based platforms such as Internap, Amazon EC2, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud, OpenStack, SoftLayer, Microsoft Azure and Rackspace to automatically provision and configure new machines.
Salary Boosting Skills
A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:
- Software Quality Assurance: Software quality assurance (SQA) consists of a means of monitoring the software engineering processes and methods used to ensure quality.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 14% |
| 3 to 5 years | 60% |
| 6 to 8 years | 16% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Automation Engineer
- Senior Automation Engineer
- Automation Controls Engineer
- Network Automation Engineer
- Senior Eggplant Trainer/Automation Engineer
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