Welding Process Engineer

Career Area: Engineering

Occupation Group: Chemical, Biomedical, and Related 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 Welding Process Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $85,128

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $79,553

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Develops and engineers improvements in welding equipment and processes at a manufacturing company. Develops efficient and safe welding processes and maintains welding systems. May develop or modify robotic welding or automatic welding systems in manufacturing.

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:

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 Welding Process 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.
• Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
• Microsoft Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.
• 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.
• Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Welding: Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing fusion, which is distinct from lower temperature metal-joining techniques such as brazing and soldering, which do not melt the base metal.
• Process Engineering: Process engineering focuses on the design, operation, control, optimization and Intensification of chemical, physical, and biological processes.
• Manufacturing Processes: Experience working within and designing manufacturing processes to combine raw materials or components into a final product.
• Mechanical Engineering: Mechanical Engineering, is the discipline that applies engineering, physics, and materials science principles to design, analyze, manufacture, and maintain mechanical systems.
• Six Sigma: Six Sigma (6) is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Welding Process Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Process Verification: Continued process verification (CPV) is the collection and analysis of end-to-end production components and processes data to ensure product outputs are within predetermined quality limits.
• Statistical Process Control (SPC): Working experience of Statistical Process Control (SPC), which is an industry-standard methodology for measuring and controlling quality during the manufacturing process. Quality data in the form of Product or Process measurements are obtained in real-time during manufacturing.
• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA): Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)also failure modes, plural, in many publicationswas one of the first highly structured, systematic techniques for failure analysis.
• Failure Analysis: Failure analysis is the process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the cause of a failure, often with the goal of determining corrective actions or liability.
• Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP): Working experience of Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP), which is a framework of procedures and techniques used to develop products in industry, particularly the automotive industry. It is quite similar to the concept of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:

• Machine Tools: A machine tool is a machine for shaping or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformation.
• Equipment Design: Manufacturing equipment is the platform for the operation of unit processes. Properly designed equipment is essential for the production of high-quality, cost-effective products. Equipment design is necessarily the broadest category of the six enabling technologies, since it ultimately serves as the vehicle to implement all of the other enabling technologies.
• Manufacturing Engineering: Manufacturing Engineering is a branch of professional engineering concerned with the understanding and application of Engineering Procedures in Manufacturing Processes and Production Methods.
• Process Validation: Process Validation is the analysis of data gathered throughout the design and manufacturing of a product in order to confirm that the process can reliably output products of a determined standard.

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.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Process Engineer
• Extrusion Process Engineer
• Senior Process Engineer
• Staff Process Engineer
• Senior Cybersecurity Engineer

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Process Engineer