Research Engineer salaries in NOVA (insurance, how much, contractor)

[blitz7619]

Hi,

I have a phd in civil engineering and have been a govt contractor for last 5 years in DC. I work on the R&D side of things. what are the typical salaries in this domain. I have looked at a lot of salary websites and I find them deceptive. Wanted to get a feel of the comparables.. I make 120K with a 2% 401K match and pay around 2K annually for medical insurance. Bonus is about 1% annually. No overtime.

looking forward to some responses.

Thanks

[shamrock847]

I think glassdoor is usually pretty good. I have found it is more accurate to search by company first and then browse through the job titles, so starting with searching the names of the major firms in your field is a good way to go. It may not be 100% accurate in your case since you can't really filter for people with PhDs or clearances but should give you some decent data points, especially if you limit yourself to the DC area.

At first glance, 120k doesn't seem unreasonable for someone with a PhD + 5 years experience as a contractor. As a gov't contractor your salary is going to be limited by what the government is willing to pay for the work. So unless you are selling a lot of buisness and/or managing a large project there is a pretty firm ceiling on how much you can make as an individual working for a contractor.