- Based on 13 Jobtrees users who were a Principal Mechanical Engineer in their career, on average, they have 6.72 years of experience and 3 jobs prior to this one. They have spent a significant amount of time in this job before moving on 6.6 years on average and earn $113K per year on average in this more senior role.
- 0% of Jobtrees users moved to another job with this same title in their next career step. The most common career steps after Principal Mechanical Engineer are Senior Mechanical Engineer, Project Engineer and Chairperson. Senior Mechanical Engineer, the most common next career step, is a less experienced role which is common to see in career paths as titles aren't synonymous across companies (higher title doesn't always mean higher pay or larger scope) and not all job seekers are looking to increase their responsibility in their next career step.
- Find more insights below about this specific career path based on our Jobtrees users' experience.
Interactive Career Path Tool – Plan the path to your next job
All the insights below are based on Jobtrees users’ actual career paths, aggregated together, instantaneously, to show you the real and unique most common career progression for each role.
Explore the ways our users are moving between roles. Apply filters. Press all the buttons. You’ll be amazed at what you find out.
The roles above are the most common next steps in our users’ career paths.
Use the + button and watch the ‘branches grow’. It adds another level of potential career steps based on the most common paths taken by Jobtrees’ users.
Project Engineer
Chairperson
Mathematics Instructor
Senior Research and Development Engineer
Chairperson
Senior Product Development Engineer
Quality Control Inspector
Research and Development Engineer
The roles below are the most common previous steps in our users’ career paths.
Use the + button and watch the ‘roots grow’. It adds another level of potential previous career steps based on the most common paths taken by Jobtrees’ users.Read insights on these paths here
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Understand more about the career path
How can I become a
- The most common career steps to get to Principal Mechanical Engineer are Senior Mechanical Engineer, Chairperson and Senior Product Development Engineer based on actual career paths reported to Jobtrees.
- While Senior Mechanical Engineer is the most common, there is no specific role leading to Principal Mechanical Engineer that is an overwhelmingly common path.
- Another characteristic of the Principal Mechanical Engineer career path is that experience within the same job family as this role isn't common and as a result likely not necessary.
- This shows there are many potential paths to becoming a Principal Mechanical Engineer so focusing on translatable skills is likely more important than a specific role.
- This is a Senior role meaning if you don’t have significant work experience and likely also experience in a closely related field, you need to start more than one or two steps away from this role in planning your path. Consider senior mechanical engineer or chairperson as these are the most popular career starting points for Jobtrees users that led to principal mechanical engineer. For a quicker path to this senior role title, consider looking at smaller companies as they have less layers to get to these more senior titles. The scope of the role and likely the pay though will still likely compare more similarly to a less experienced role title at a larger company. This is partly why you see some unexpected experience level titles leading to this role.
- While Senior Mechanical Engineer isn't from the same job family as Principal Mechanical Engineer, Engineering - Product, it can help to have direct experience in this discipline shown by Chairperson also being a common career path to Principal Mechanical Engineer.
What should I know about the career path
- The most common degrees or certifications earned by Jobtrees users on the path to become Principal Mechanical Engineer are Bachelor Of Science (b.sc.) In Mechanical Engineering, Master Of Science (m.sc.) In Mechanical Engineering, and Master Of Business Administration (mba). There may be other specific certification requirements to land a job with this role, so please make sure to check local regulations as well.
- Career paths aren't linear with people often returning to a prior role which is what you see with Senior Mechanical Engineer being the most common role to and from Principal Mechanical Engineer. This is common when people move companies where the title is the same as a past one but the scope may be different but also is commonly driven by them choosing to return to a function they fit well with.
- Principal Mechanical Engineer is part of the Engineering - Product job family which has a limited number of unique role types (42) within that discipline. Choosing to pursue a role within this family likely will mean that you will need to look outside of your discipline to find new roles and so should focus on related skills as part of that search.
- Our data is limited for this role so it's possible there are other common career paths not highlighted here for Principal Mechanical Engineer.