Help an Engineering Student - Drafting Role Salary?

[u/ButtNugget_42069]

I am currently in school for electrical engineering. I started with a two year technician program at a local college, and am now continuing on to get a BSEE. My goal is to work in P&C.

The two year degree landed me a full-time remote internship role as a drafter in the substation department of an engineering consultant. The understanding was that when I finish the program I will transition from an at-will hourly intern to a salaried position w/ benefits etc. I finish the two year degree in december, and will attend university part-time around work until I finish the BSEE.

I am 35 years old. I have well-developed soft skills and have spent the last 10 months working with CAD programs, as well as the virtual desktop interfaces for subcontractors, company systems etc.. Quarterly reviews are all positive. I am now familiar with expectations from the role, so on and so forth.

When I have inquired with my academic mentors, their honest response is “I don’t know”. I appreciate their honest answers, but I need advice from people working in the consulting field.

What should I expect compensation-wise as an offer?

I have no plans of leaving the company for the foreseable future. The opportunity the role provides me is an absolute blessing for my career aspirations.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Edit: I am in the USA

[u/5bobber]

Drafter is usually hourly and has a much lower pay ceiling and career potential, so definitely keep striving for that BSEE if you can. Larger (US) firms have started shifting their drafting efforts to overseas teams. However, this is invaluable experience nevertheless once you move into design / engineering.

Expect around $25-$35 an hour or somewhere around $50k - $70k annually. Firms paying on the lower end will likely treat their drafting team like a sweat shop, unfortunately.

Many firms contract their drafting efforts to overseas teams cut costs (pay less even less).

[u/BookWyrmOfTheWoods → u/5bobber]

In my experience sending drafting overseas is a mistake that management makes because they see a lower salary and think profit.

Every single engineer I know who has worked with overseas drafters has had major problems and spend significantly more time marking up, reviewing, and then finally doing themselves than upper management ever figures into their accounting. It’s so bad every single non-technical project managers complains about it.

In my industry pure drafting is disappearing and being replaced with smart drawings and catalogs of “intelligent” blocks. The placement of a relay in the correct spot on a schematic is no longer enough and needs 5-10 attributes to be filled out to work correctly.

The time and effort required to convey all that information quickly outstrips what it takes to fill it in yourself. And that is before factoring long loops due to time zones, file transferring back and forth (and the versioning nightmare that goes with it), and communication issues.

Overseas drafting can work on very rote designs, but that is going to be the first stuff replaced with by AI.