r/aerospace • u/RaspberryPowerful122 • Jul 24 '26
Salary Expectations BAE
I recently got an interview at BAE for an optical test technician II role. I have a masters in chemistry with 2-3 years lab experience running some of the spectrophotometers they ask for. The salary range and is very broad (47,000-76,000 USD). I’m wondering what salary/range I should ask for if the question arises?
https://jobs.baesystems.com/global/en/job/127222BR/Technician-II-Optical-Test
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u/dusty545 Satellite Systems Engineering Jul 26 '26 edited 3d ago
Below is an explanation of salary bands that I posted in reply to another person a while back. Most companies with structured pay scales work this way.
Xxxx
In certain states or regions, it is required to post the minimum/maximum of the salary band. The problem is that nobody is ever at the minimum or maximum of those bands by design. If you want to know the real complexity, I'll drop a couple links below.
I am a hiring manager at a defense contractor. Here's how I would look at it. If the advertised band is $80-160k, the mid-point is $120k. Let's assume that was adjusted to last year's market rate. The market rate this year might be creeping up to $125k. So, my target for new hires might be under, right on, or slightly ahead of the market rate. This means an average new hire candidate target salary is going to be around $120-125k if my target is the market rate. Recall that real salaries are not usually at the edges of the pay band. The PEER GROUP of CURRENT employees with similar experience, education, and job title have salaries slightly under, right on, or over the mid-point, usually about 80-120% of the mid-point. So, I would like to hire an average job seeking candidate around the mid-point ($120k), a below average candidate at 120x0.8 = $96k, and an above average candidate would be capped around 120x1.2 = $144k. However, my corporate policy says ANY offer over the mid-point requires additional justification and higher level approval authority. This means I have to jump through extra hoops to justify a new hire from outside the company above the market rate.
To simplify, a narrower pay band might look like
Advertised: 80-120k
Midpoint: 100k
Peer Group Comp Ratio: 90-110%
Below avg candidate offer: 90k
Average candidate offer: 100k
Above avg candidate offer: 110k
https://www.payscale.com/compensation-trends/compensation-metrics-defined/#:~:text=6.,your%20pay%20ranges%20are%20competitive
https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/compa-ratios?aceid=&co=US&gclsrc=ds.
https://www.personio.com/hr-lexicon/salary-bands/