Engineer Salaries in F1
Discussion
It seems engineer salaries in F1 aren't quite what I thought they were.
I got one of those "You would be a great fit" emails from Glassdoor today. They are usually utterly wrong, and are actually recruiting an electrician in Dundee or similar. This one was far more interesting though, and actually does seem to fit quite a few of my skills;
Formula 1
Senior Electronics Hardware Engineer
Biggin Hill, England
Actually with F1, not a racing team. It is a design role, active in R&D and specialising in timing. Some travel.
Not exactly the cheapest part of the country, but I reckoned the salary would be decent.
Yes, about that... The Glassdoor estimated salary (yes, they don't actually print a salary, ffs) is £35K-£50K. £35K isn't even a senior electronics design engineer's salary in Yorkshire, and £50K is probably the lower end of what you'd expect, especially with 30% inflation over the last 3 years. Do they rely on the demand from engineers wanting a sexy job title? Doing some research, those estimated numbers seem to be about right. On looking into it further, the job has been open for over 30 days, so I guess I'm not alone in thinking it is more than a bit pants.
I got one of those "You would be a great fit" emails from Glassdoor today. They are usually utterly wrong, and are actually recruiting an electrician in Dundee or similar. This one was far more interesting though, and actually does seem to fit quite a few of my skills;
Formula 1
Senior Electronics Hardware Engineer
Biggin Hill, England
Actually with F1, not a racing team. It is a design role, active in R&D and specialising in timing. Some travel.
Not exactly the cheapest part of the country, but I reckoned the salary would be decent.
Yes, about that... The Glassdoor estimated salary (yes, they don't actually print a salary, ffs) is £35K-£50K. £35K isn't even a senior electronics design engineer's salary in Yorkshire, and £50K is probably the lower end of what you'd expect, especially with 30% inflation over the last 3 years. Do they rely on the demand from engineers wanting a sexy job title? Doing some research, those estimated numbers seem to be about right. On looking into it further, the job has been open for over 30 days, so I guess I'm not alone in thinking it is more than a bit pants.
Interesting. Now obviously people will pay what they can get away with paying, but a senior design engineer for timing hardware is going to be one of only dozens of people in the country, most of whom will be able to name their own price somewhat higher than the suggestion given.
It’s not going to be building a stopwatch with a 555 timer, as many of us did in school decades ago, nor will it be simply integration of one of the many off-the-shelf systems available for racetrack timing.
They already have the official timing beams at every electronic marshal post around the circuit, so one can only assume their next project is going to be real-time gap data of some sort, using something more sophisticated than a simple car-based transponder, that doesn’t yet exist.
It’s not going to be building a stopwatch with a 555 timer, as many of us did in school decades ago, nor will it be simply integration of one of the many off-the-shelf systems available for racetrack timing.
They already have the official timing beams at every electronic marshal post around the circuit, so one can only assume their next project is going to be real-time gap data of some sort, using something more sophisticated than a simple car-based transponder, that doesn’t yet exist.
Ken_Code said:
How accurate is the Glassdoor estimate likely to be? Is it possible that they have auto-filled it based on keywords and got it wrong?
I suspect that the word ‘engineer’ is somewhat inappropriately used for a whole number of lower-grade blue-collar jobs advertised, as opposed to F1 who are clearly looking for someone who likely has at least a Masters degree in electonics and a decade’s experience in hardware and system design. Edit: here’s the actual advert, linked from https://corp.formula1.com/careers/
https://formulaone.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/F1/job/Bi...
It’s a pretty senior role, systems architect level.
Pistom said:
In short, yes, some teams (well, one in particular) pay laughable salaries.
Not everything is about money and as ong as there's applicants who will take the job, they'll offer crap salaries.
I made that point in a recent topic about F1 teams being desperate to recruit & the OP had a right hissy fit about someone daring to point out that F1 has always taken advantage of people where they can.Not everything is about money and as ong as there's applicants who will take the job, they'll offer crap salaries.
I see none of the job adverts have salary ranges included so they must be embarrasingly low.
F1 salaries aren't great, but you do get a "travel the world" all expenses paid if you're track team, and the bonuses are very good if you're in a winning team. Not been much of that shared around recently.
It's also very high pressure work, with somewhat a 24/7 mentality depending on how your development is doing and state of your cars at the end of the weekend.
I worked with someone who was quite senior in a smaller team and was trackside (and on TV occasionally). He came to us for a quieter life. On finding out it was more chaotic with us, they went to an engine supplier instead.
It's also very high pressure work, with somewhat a 24/7 mentality depending on how your development is doing and state of your cars at the end of the weekend.
I worked with someone who was quite senior in a smaller team and was trackside (and on TV occasionally). He came to us for a quieter life. On finding out it was more chaotic with us, they went to an engine supplier instead.
Mr Pointy said:
I made that point in a recent topic about F1 teams being desperate to recruit & the OP had a right hissy fit about someone daring to point out that F1 has always taken advantage of people where they can.
I see none of the job adverts have salary ranges included so they must be embarrasingly low.
Taking advantage is a reasonable view but if someone wants to work in a particular field, then maybe salary isn't so important to them.I see none of the job adverts have salary ranges included so they must be embarrasingly low.
Evanivitch said:
F1 salaries aren't great, but you do get a "travel the world" all expenses paid if you're track team, and the bonuses are very good if you're in a winning team. Not been much of that shared around recently.
It's also very high pressure work, with somewhat a 24/7 mentality depending on how your development is doing and state of your cars at the end of the weekend.
I worked with someone who was quite senior in a smaller team and was trackside (and on TV occasionally). He came to us for a quieter life. On finding out it was more chaotic with us, they went to an engine supplier instead.
If by "travel the world all expenses paid" you mean economy flights, drive to hotel, drive to circuit, eat in hospitality, drive back to hotel, rinse & repeat for four days, economy flight home, prep for next race then yes I suppose you get that. When Australia was the final race at least we managed to get a free holiday at the end - not so much use now it's Abu Dhabi.It's also very high pressure work, with somewhat a 24/7 mentality depending on how your development is doing and state of your cars at the end of the weekend.
I worked with someone who was quite senior in a smaller team and was trackside (and on TV occasionally). He came to us for a quieter life. On finding out it was more chaotic with us, they went to an engine supplier instead.
I think the low pay for engineering is a reflection of the uk mentality. Where companies seem happy to pay for less qualified rolls such as a ‘talker’ or a hustler/skimmer who plays with other people’s money, all of which seem to be well rewarded though.
Perhaps that’s why the majority of teams stay in the uk; cheap labour. I don’t think they’d have the budget to base themselves in say Germany where engineering is better recognised and rightly so.
Perhaps that’s why the majority of teams stay in the uk; cheap labour. I don’t think they’d have the budget to base themselves in say Germany where engineering is better recognised and rightly so.
Adrian W said:
The big design houses charge out senior people at £1000 per day plus a retainer as a minimum, I would expect the people to get at least half of that
My experience of working in large engineering consultancies (for around 20 years) is that salaries there are typically no more than a quarter of the charge out rate. My rate (for a senior in my niche, but not senior in the company) would be more than £1000 per day, but my salary certainly wasn't, but it was bang on the average suggested by Glassdoor.You need to be careful when comparing salaries on Glassdoor and similar sites, especially when it comes to engineering and design, as they are very broad disciplines covering a multitude of industries and niches. You need to be very specific with your keywords when searching, otherwise you can find wildly different salaries for what are superficially the same role, but specialism will almost always command higher pay than generalism.
Adrian W said:
The big design houses charge out senior people at £1000 per day plus a retainer as a minimum, I would expect the people to get at least half of that
That depends. A £1000 day rate often means you're not wanted around for long. So you might spend a lot of time "on the bench" not being billed.Based at Biggin Hill. This isn’t an F1 team but the TV world feed Production base. I used to work for them, Formula One Management, years ago as a freelancer. They paid their staff badly then, looks like nothings changed. As freelancers we would usually stay in the same hotels as the drivers, for example in Malaysia, we’d all be in the Pan Pacific hotel, the staff would be in a complex commonly know as “Tenko” 
Good times.
Good times.
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