JPL or The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is NASA’s field center and is a federally funded research and development center which is located in the city of La Canada Flintridge, California, United States. It is owned by NASA and was founded in 1936 currently under the management of the California Institute of Technology. The primary feature of the laboratory is the construction of robotic spacecraft and sometimes it also conducts Earth-orbit astronomy missions and is also responsible for operating the NASA Deep Space Network. let us know about that the What Are Jpl Salary Levels?
What are JPL salary levels?
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory pays its employees an average of 114,576 a year, the salary depends upon the position of the employee in the laboratory, the salaries range from an average of $78,053 to $166,233 a year. Jet Propulsion Laboratory pays the highest salary to the Senior Software Engineer receiving an annual salary of $121,239 and the least salary is received by the System Integration Engineer who earns an annual salary of $94,797. Since it is state-funded but managed by CalTech, the salary level is set by the university only not by the government and the salary received by these employees is 20% more than the national average salary.
How to get a job at Jet Propulsion Laboratory?
Getting a job at Jet Propulsion Laboratory which is NASA is extremely difficult the whole process is very competitive and requires all its applicants to have a very strong academic background with a GPA of 3.0 or above and even after this there is no guarantee of getting a job, every job requires a different qualification but the main requirement is a Bachelor’s in that particular field and a good amount of experience after which they have a total of 3 rounds of interview and they would prefer hiring people who have already done an internship in Jet Propulsion Laboratory or NASA.
What are some of the engineering jobs at Jet Propulsion Laboratory?
Electronic Reliability Engineer: The engineer would be part of the project reliability engineering group, some of the tasks include verifying the reliability of systems, subsystems, and assemblies down to the circuit and component level. For this job, the employee needs to have a Bachelor’s in electrical engineering or related technical discipline with 6 years of relevant experience, salary ranges from $98,000 to $120,000 with an average of $107,921.
Additive Manufacturing Engineer
The additive manufacturing engineering would be part of JPL’s Additive Manufacturing Center and Sheet Metal Fabrication Group, the daily tasks would include operation of the AM machine and performing material characterization to determine the mechanical, thermal, chemical, or optical properties of the machine. To be qualified for the job, the person would need to have a Bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, material engineering, or related technical discipline with 3 years of relevant experience, the average salary for an additive manufacturing engineer is $98,829 and the range lies somewhere between $65,000 to $123,000.
Thermal/ Mechanical Engineering
The engineer would be part of the Thermal Cycle Life Qualification, the responsibilities include the development and implementation of the Thermal Cycle Life Qualification plan across multiple JPL projects and the employee would also be leading a team of engineers under them for identifying hardware. This job requires a Bachelor’s in mechanical engineering or related technical discipline, the average pay is $103,117 and the pay scale ranges from $74,000 to $121,000.
System Engineering
As a system engineer the employee would be part of JBL’s Flight System Engineering, Integration and Test Section, the job would include spacecraft system engineering, payload system integration, electrical system integration, fault protection, autonomy design, and landing system design. This position requires a Bachelor’s degree in physics, engineering, or a related technical discipline with the average pay being $93,926 and ranging from $79,000 to $99,000
Are employees satisfied with working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory?
In terms of salaries, the employee at Jet Propulsion Laboratory are extremely satisfied which includes a combination of pay, stock and equity, and benefits, JPL has a strict fixed timing policy as in the employee has to be on time and have to work 9 hours in a day however majority people end up working late and a lot of people pull an all-nighter without taking a break but the company does have a good work environment with the benefit of not working on weekends, the employee also has a good work-life balance with health insurance, cafeteria and vending machines available in the company and regular seminar which have flexible timings so that they can be attended by the employees according to their schedule.
Conclusion
Jet Propulsion Laboratory offers its employees a handsome salary and the working hours and also not extremely strenuous however considering that majority of the people working at JPL need to be intelligent and be academically perfect with no criminal record the salary range seems adequate, getting hired at JPL which is NASA is a big achievement in itself for a lot of people but the only problem is that according to a lot of people who interviewed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that JPL prefers taking the student from California Institute of Technology itself or the people who have already done an internship there because they do not have time to train every new employee. The biggest problem in working for JPL is that of job security, if the project you have been working on gets canceled for some reason or if there is not enough funding there is a huge chance of you and your whole team losing their job.
Frequently asked question
How many employees does Jet Propulsion Laboratory have in total?
Jet Propulsion Laboratory employs a total workforce of about 7,000 CalTech employees and contractors and in 2022 was voted as the best place to work by the Glassdoor website.
What are some of the missions founded by Jet Propulsion Laboratory?
All these missions are only partially funded by JPL
- CloudSat
- Europe Clipper
- Juno
- Mars Cube One
- Mars Odyssey
