How To Become A Clinical Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a clinical engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted Expert

Thomas Junk Ph.D.

These professionals are tasked with designing and creating medical equipment and technology for medical procedures and examinations. They regularly maintain and check biomedical equipment and computer systems. This is to ensure results and performance are accurate and prevent potential hazards. They perform quality control tests to detect system failures and perform prompt troubleshooting as necessary. Besides that, they oversee teams of technicians and lead research studies in biomedical technology. Furthermore, they work with scientists to develop medical equipment and biomedical research advances.

To get this job, you need a bachelor's degree, an apprenticeship, or a specialist training program. The bachelor's degree must be in biomedical engineering or a related field. You need research, analytical, problem-solving, communication, and people skills. You must be familiar with medical and computer-aided design software systems. Clinical engineers earn about $76,746 in a year. Their salary falls between $54,000 and $109,000.

What general advice would you give to a Clinical Engineer?

Thomas Junk Ph.D.

Professor and Head, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

While this may not exactly answer your question, it is very important to start making connections and to network WELL BEFORE graduation. Internships, volunteer work, membership in professional organizations, leadership activities all help to land a job after graduation. It is very important to continue networking as much as possible. The only true job security is the ability to find another job - it is truly liberating because it enables you to say "no" to your boss, if necessary. Also, I noticed that many graduates do not take advantage of all possible avenues to find employers. It is important to have a good web presence and to sign up on sites such as LinkedIn.

I also highly recommend cultivating ties to one's former institution and college friends. Often, job openings are filled by word of mouth: companies looking for somebody with a specific skill set ask around. A company contacted me for the name of somebody I could recommend for a specific job, but I came to find out that the contact information that I had of the person I wanted to recommend was no longer valid.

It is important to have specific career goals. Many recent graduates and fresh hires let their careers "drift" and have no idea where they want to be ten years from now. Also, always keep looking for jobs! Few jobs are so good that it is impossible to find a better one.

ScoreClinical EngineerUS Average

Salary

5.9

Avg. Salary $75,883

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

5.4

Growth Rate 10%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

2.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.86%

Asian 14.14%

Black or African American 6.98%

Hispanic or Latino 10.00%

Unknown 4.94%

White 63.08%

Gender

female 22.74%

male 77.26%

Age - 33

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 33

Stress Level

5.4

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.3

Complexity Level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

6.4

Work Life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a clinical engineer

Explore clinical engineer education requirements

Most common clinical engineer degrees

Bachelor's

50.7 %

Associate

28.4 %

Master's

14.0 %

Start to develop specific clinical engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Patient Care	11.01%
Medical Devices	10.55%
Patients	10.01%
FDA	6.87%
Preventative Maintenance	5.97%

Complete relevant clinical engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New clinical engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a clinical engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real clinical engineer resumes.

Research clinical engineer duties and responsibilities

Develop and manage in-house maintenance program utilizing a balance of OEM, third party, and in-house talent.
Manage Jenkins security by providing specific access to authorize developers/testers using project base matrix authorization strategy.
Direct support of cardiovascular unit, surgery and relate services.
Support all phases of software development life cycle through FDA approval & commercial launch.

Prepare your clinical engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your clinical engineer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a clinical engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Clinical Engineer Resume templates

Build a professional Clinical Engineer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Clinical Engineer resume.

Apply for clinical engineer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a clinical engineer job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do clinical engineers rate their job?

-/5

5 Stars

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1 Star

Clinical Engineer reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Jun 2019

Pros

Inventing smart ways of mproving human lives.

Cons

Low salary compared to other engineering fields.