FlightWay / Careers / Industrial Engineers
Engineering & Science
Industrial Engineers
Design, develop, test, and evaluate integrated systems for managing industrial production processes, including human work factors, quality control, inventory control, logistics and material flow, c…
- Sector: Engineering & Science
- Preparation: Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed
- O*NET code: 17-2112.00
What you'll actually do
The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.
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Making Decisions and Solving Problems
central to the job — rated 85/100 for importance.
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Working with Computers
a major part of the work — rated 83/100 for importance.
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Getting Information
a major part of the work — rated 80/100 for importance.
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Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates
a major part of the work — rated 76/100 for importance.
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Thinking Creatively
a major part of the work — rated 76/100 for importance.
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Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events
a major part of the work — rated 74/100 for importance.
Design, develop, test, and evaluate integrated systems for managing industrial production processes, including human work factors, quality control, inventory control, logistics and material flow, cost analysis, and production coordination.
What it takes
Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.
Skills
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Reading Comprehension
Needed at a high level (64/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
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Active Listening
Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
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Critical Thinking
Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
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Complex Problem Solving
Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
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Speaking
Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
Knowledge
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Engineering and Technology
Needed at a high level (72/100), and rated 85/100 for importance.
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Production and Processing
Needed at a high level (67/100), and rated 82/100 for importance.
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Mechanical
Needed at a high level (72/100), and rated 80/100 for importance.
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Design
Needed at a high level (74/100), and rated 77/100 for importance.
Abilities
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Oral Expression
Needed at a high level (63/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
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Written Comprehension
Needed at a high level (63/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
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Inductive Reasoning
Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
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Oral Comprehension
Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
How people get in
O*NET places this occupation in Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.
Education
A four-year bachelor's degree is the usual entry ticket.
Experience
Two to four years of related work, internships or research on top of the degree.
Training
Most of the learning happens before you are hired, not after.
What it pays
These are typical engineering compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Industrial Engineers specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.
SpaceX · NVIDIA · Boeing
$120k – $200k+
Manufacturing Corps
$85k – $140k
Local Engineering Firms
$65k – $110k
How the work tends to run
Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.
- Most of the day happens at a screen.From “Working with Computers”
- You own decisions rather than execute someone else’s.From “Making Decisions and Solving Problems”
- There is real room to invent — the answer is not in a manual.From “Thinking Creatively”
How FlightWay scores your fit against this
No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.
- 1. You answer a short quiz
- Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
- 2. We correlate the two profiles
- Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Industrial Engineers. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
- 3. The number you see is personality fit only
- "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
- 4. Every factor is visible
- You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.
More in Engineering & Science
See your fit for Industrial Engineers
Ten questions, about 90 seconds. You get your match against Industrial Engineers and 782+ other real careers — with the reasoning shown.
Take the quiz Open in FlightWayOccupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.