NJ Civil Service Navigator

Engineer Family

Career series with 20 positions across 2 levels

Engineer is a career-ladder family in New Jersey civil service, with 20 titles spanning 2 levels.

Entry is typically through Engineer 4, Hazardous Site Mitigation, advancing through the ladder toward Engineer 1, Hazardous Site Mitigation and, from there, into supervisory roles. Pay across the family spans $63,663 to $155,359, around the 86th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 180 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Transportation.

Engineer reports to supervising titles such as Principal Engineer and Supervising Engineer.

20
Positions
2
Career Levels
10
Specializations
Salary Range: $63,663 - $155,359/year

Specializations

Bridges Electrical Hazardous Site Mitigation Materials Mechanical Planning Structural Evaluation Traffic +2 more

Positions in This Family

... and 5 more positions

What the Engineer family covers

Engineer is a graded series in the New Jersey civil service classification plan, running 20 title codes across 2 levels. The family straddles jurisdictions: 16 state and 4 local, so parts of it are hired by state departments and parts by local civil service employers.

Engineering series in New Jersey are organized by discipline and then by responsibility, so a family usually reads assistant, then senior, then principal, then supervising. Professional Engineer licensure appears at the senior end rather than at entry, which lets the state hire graduates and license them in post. Transportation is the largest employer of these titles by a wide margin, with Environmental Protection, Treasury property management and the county engineering offices behind it. Construction inspection titles sit nearby but belong to the regulatory side.

The ladder, ordered by pay

Ordered by what they actually pay rather than by the number in the title, the Engineer rungs look like this. Note that the numbers in these titles do not run in pay order. In this family a lower number sits higher on the ladder, which is a New Jersey convention that catches people out when they read a title list top to bottom.

Showing the 12 best paid of 15 titles with published salary data.

The distance from the bottom of Engineer 4, Hazardous Site Mitigation to the top of Supervising Engineer, Electrical is $91,696, an increase of about 144% over the entry minimum.

What each title does

Each title in the family carries its own published definition. These are the opening lines of each one, which is usually where the difference between two neighboring rungs is actually stated.

  • Engineer 4, Hazardous Site Mitigation: Under direction of an Engineer 2, Hazardous Site Mitigation or other supervisory official in the Department of Environmental Protection, Site…
  • Engineer 1, Hazardous Site Mitigation: Under direction of a Section Chief, or other supervisory official in the Department of Environmental Protection, Site Remediation/ Hazardous Waste…
  • Senior Engineer: Under direction, in one or more branches of engineering, performs the more difficult field and office engineering work involved in the design, maintenance and…
  • Senior Engineer, Traffic: Under direction of a supervisory official, outlines operations, prepares and conducts various studies having to do with traffic engineering; does other…
  • Supervising Engineer: Under direction, in one or more branches of engineering, supervises the field and office engineering work involved in the review, design, maintenance and…
  • Senior Engineer, Bridges: Under general supervision, performs engineering work involved in devising detailed designs and estimates of the costs of highway bridges and related structures…
  • Principal Engineer, Transportation: Under direction of a Project Engineer or other supervisory official in the (A) Construction-Maintenance Service, (B) Design Service, or (C) Traffic and…
  • Supervising Engineer, Structural Evaluation: Under direction of the Chief, Bureau of Structural Investigation, Evaluation and Rating, Department of Transportation, directs and supervises…

Showing 8 of 20 published definitions in this family. The full list of titles is below.

What it takes to qualify

Across the 20 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a bachelor's degree on 18 of them and a master's degree on 1 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 5 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.

1 of the 20 titles carry a license or certification requirement. On how the jobs are filled: 20 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.

Who actually employs these titles

State payroll records show 180 people working under 12 of this family's titles, spread across 3 agencies. Transportation alone accounts for about 98% of them.

  • Transportation — 177 employees
  • Board of the Public Utilities — 2 employees
  • Military and Veterans Affairs — 1 employee

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $83,533 for Senior Engineer, Planning up to $150,105 for Supervising Engineer, Structural Evaluation. Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.

State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.

How the pay is set

Titles in this family are paid on the A-P-R-S salary schedule. See every step in that schedule. Bargaining is handled by CWA. Union contracts and rights are collected here.

Where these jobs exist

Because the family mixes jurisdictions, the answer to "who hires this" depends on the specific code. State codes run through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process; local codes are hired by the counties, municipalities and authorities that adopted civil service under Title 11A. Check an employer's status before assuming a title is available where you live.

Related titles elsewhere in the plan

These titles sit elsewhere in the classification plan but share vocabulary with Engineer, which usually means overlapping duties or a related eligible list.

Families next to this one

New Jersey's classification plan links families by shared terminology and by the routes people actually take between them. These sit closest to Engineer.

Common questions about Engineer jobs

How many Engineer titles are there in New Jersey civil service?

The Engineer family holds 20 title codes arranged across 2 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

What does an Engineer earn in New Jersey?

Published salary data for this family runs from $63,663 at the bottom of Engineer 4, Hazardous Site Mitigation to $155,359 at the top of Supervising Engineer, Electrical. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.

Do you need to take an exam to become an Engineer?

Yes for most of the family. 20 of the 20 titles are in the competitive division, which means appointment comes from an eligible list built by an open competitive or promotional examination.

What qualifications does an Engineer need?

The most common education requirement in this family is a bachelor's degree, named on 18 of the 20 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 5 years depending on the rung. 1 of the titles also require a license or certification. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.

Which agencies employ Engineer staff?

State payroll records show 180 people in this family across 3 agencies, with Transportation the largest at 177. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.

Is Engineer 1 higher or lower than Engineer 3?

In this family the lower number is the more senior title. New Jersey's level numbering does not run in pay order, and reading the titles by number alone will give you the ladder upside down. The list above is sorted by what each title actually pays.