Typical Pay for Computer Hardware Engineers

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Typical Pay for Computer Hardware Engineers

The median annual wage for computer hardware engineers was $115,080 in May 2016. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $66,870, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $172,010.

In May 2016, the median annual wages for computer hardware engineers in the top industries in which they worked were as follows:

Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing	$124,220
Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences	123,050
Computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing	120,530
Computer systems design and related services	116,840
Federal government	109,770

Most computer hardware engineers work full time.

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What Computer Hardware Engineers Do All Day

Computer hardware engineers research, design, develop, and test computer systems and components such as processors, circuit boards, memory devices, networks, and routers.

Duties

Computer hardware engineers typically do the following:

• Design new computer hardware, creating schematics of computer equipment to be built
• Test the computer hardware they design
• Analyze the test results and modify the design as needed
• Update existing computer equipment so that it will work with new software
• Oversee the manufacturing process for computer hardware

Many hardware engineers design devices used in manufactured products that incorporate processors and other computer components and that connect to the Internet. For example, many new cars, home appliances, and medical devices have Internet-ready computer systems built into them.

Computer hardware engineers ensure that computer hardware components work together with the latest software. Therefore, hardware engineers often work with software developers. For example, the hardware and software for mobile phones and other devices frequently are developed at the same time.