Automotive Engineer

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

An Automotive Engineer creates and improves mechanisms for automotive components.

Job Outlook

There were 182 Automotive Engineer job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 6154 in the United States.

In combination with other careers in the Mechanical Engineer industry, which includes the Automotive Engineer career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:

Salary

Many new Automotive Engineer jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.

National

The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $117,704.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $107,407.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Automotive Engineer postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $98,532.

Education and Experience

Posted Automotive Engineer jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.

Education Level	Percentage
Associate's Degree	0%
Bachelor's Degree	81.69%
Master's Degree	29.46%
Doctoral Degree	9.33%
Other	4.53%

Posted Automotive Engineer jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Years of Experience	Percentage
0 to 2 years	21.04%
3 to 5 years	45.45%
6 to 8 years	17.02%
9+ years	16.48%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Automotive Engineer positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.

Baseline Skills

A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.

Communication (41.49%)
Management (21.48%)
Planning (21.08%)
Problem Solving (21.06%)
Leadership (19.42%)
Writing (17.68%)
Operations (15.94%)
Coordinating (14.45%)
Microsoft Office (13.47%)
Innovation (12.35%)

Defining Skills

A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.

Electrical Engineering (23.37%)
Release Engineering (7.85%)
Engineering Design Process (22.43%)
Mechanical Engineering (30.31%)

Necessary Skills

A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.

Bill Of Materials (8.62%)
Mechanical Design (8.96%)
Design Verification (8.69%)
Project Engineering (8.2%)
3D Modeling (13.57%)
Data Analysis (5.59%)
C (Programming Language) (4.31%)
Teamcenter (PLM Software) (4.29%)
Computer-Aided Design (22.36%)
Change Management (3.25%)
Debugging (8.27%)
SolidWorks (CAD) (10.32%)
Computer Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) (10.9%)
Computer Science (8.13%)
Design Failure Mode And Effects Analysis (6.15%)
Perl (Programming Language) (4.77%)
Manufacturing Processes (11.23%)
Systems Engineering (10.24%)
Automotive Engineering (3.86%)
Automotive Industry (3.54%)
AutoCAD (13.34%)
Construction (7.36%)
MATLAB (7.29%)
Civil Engineering (8.45%)
Prototyping (8.08%)
C++ (Programming Language) (6.26%)
Test Planning (8.93%)
Computer Engineering (7.68%)
Systems Design (12.88%)
Verilog (4.45%)
Subsystems (2.85%)
Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) (4.72%)
Application Specific Integrated Circuits (6.15%)
Python (Programming Language) (9.28%)
Project Management (21.37%)
Product Design (9.77%)
New Product Development (20.18%)
SystemVerilog (Direct Programming Interface) (6.26%)
Tooling (8.17%)
Scripting (5.34%)
PTC Creo (CAD Suite) (9.87%)
Export Control (6.5%)

Alternative Job Titles

Sometimes employers post jobs with Automotive Engineer skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:

Design Engineer
Systems Design Engineer
Substation Design Engineer
Design Release Engineer
Design Verification Engineer
Design Engineering Manager
Transportation Design Engineer
Wire Harness Design Engineer
Fluids Engineer
Structural Design Engineer

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.

Common Employers

Here are the employers that have posted the most Automotive Engineer jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

Ford (417)
Blue Origin (294)
Electrical Consultants (201)
Actalent (161)
Apple (96)
General Motors (92)
Raytheon Technologies (85)
BAE Systems (72)
Diversified Agency (70)
Jacobs Solutions (54)

North Carolina

Raytheon Technologies (15)
Southern Company (10)
Actalent (9)
Mckim & Creed (8)
Ford (7)
Arinc International Of Canada Ulc (5)
Electrical Consultants (5)
City Of Charlotte (5)
Kiewit Corporation (5)
Hendrick Motorsports (4)

NC State Programs Relevant to this Career

If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!

All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.

Engineering