How To Become An Engineering Programmer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an engineering programmer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted experts

Brian Glas,

Christian Hansen Ph.D.

Engineering Programmers apply principles and techniques of engineering, mathematics, and computer science to the design, development, and testing of software applications for computers.

In a company, Engineering Programmers, along with an excellent software development team, will be responsible for working on the company's projects. Your duties will include but are not limited to developing and directing software system validation and testing methods, as well as leading your software programming initiatives. You will also be working closely with clients and cross-functional departments to communicate project statuses and proposals.

You will probably require a bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering Programming, or another related field to be qualified for this role. You will also need at least five to seven years of software engineering or program development experience, preferably in a related field.

What general advice would you give to an Engineering Programmer?

Brian Glas

Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Union University

Build relationships: Different technologies will interest and challenge you, but throughout your career, you'll find that it's the relationships that are the most important. This is harder to grasp earlier in your career, but much easier to understand after 15-20 years.
Gain different perspectives: Spend time with people in other roles that your job interacts with, and gain a solid understanding of how they view things; this is most valuable for career progression and understanding of how your work fits into the big picture.

ScoreEngineering ProgrammerUS Average

Salary

7.5

Avg. Salary $95,776

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.1

Growth rate -7%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.18%

Asian 14.94%

Black or African American 5.09%

Hispanic or Latino 8.99%

Unknown 4.73%

White 66.08%

Gender

female 16.78%

male 83.22%

Age - 48

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 48

Stress level

5.1

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.7

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an engineering programmer

Explore engineering programmer education requirements

Most common engineering programmer degrees

Bachelor's

64.1 %

Master's

14.1 %

Associate

14.1 %

Start to develop specific engineering programmer skills

Skills	Percentages
C++	21.97%
Troubleshoot	6.12%
PC	5.71%
Java	4.48%
Debugging	3.85%

Complete relevant engineering programmer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New engineering programmers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an engineering programmer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real engineering programmer resumes.

Research engineering programmer duties and responsibilities

Restructure websites using HTML and CSS.
Work on Java and JavaScript in implementing the interfaces.
Design and write C++, parallel vtk-base visualization application for studying tera-scale data.
Repair and upgrade PC and network of the enterprise.

Prepare your engineering programmer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your engineering programmer resume.

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