The PCB designer is a doomed species, much like the buggy whip manufacturer.
These days the engineer who designs the circuit also designs the PCB, and programs such as Altium integrate the two jobs together. So, using Altium, once you have designed the schematic and made the parts list, the PCB design is pretty much automated. You have to specify the size of the board and where the mounting holes go, but that is about it. There is no longer any reason to employ a specialized PCB designer, it is cheaper to just let the program do it. Plus programs do not get fatigued, although they do make mistakes.
So, to answer your question, you would be lucky to make minimum wage. More likely you would have to be an unpaid intern. There are still a few elderly PCB designers that make $80k per year, but they will be long gone by the time you get to that age.
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Probably a little more than minimum wage (say about $10 ~ $12 per hour).
Everything is factored in for location, company size, education, experience, and software skills.
The (2) that pay the most are Cadence and Mentor Graphics, but Altium is also popular.
Eagle and other hobby packages are not used in the industry, so don't bother with them.
Expect to top out at about $80K with at least 10 ~ 15 years of experience:
http://www.indeed.com/salary/Pcb-Designer.html
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/pcb-designer-sal...
If you want to go higher than that you will need to be an Electrical Engineer.
In fact many PCB jobs require EE experience for high speed (>500 MHz) designs.
The PCB designer is a doomed species, much like the buggy whip manufacturer.
These days the engineer who designs the circuit also designs the PCB, and programs such as Altium integrate the two jobs together. So, using Altium, once you have designed the schematic and made the parts list, the PCB design is pretty much automated. You have to specify the size of the board and where the mounting holes go, but that is about it. There is no longer any reason to employ a specialized PCB designer, it is cheaper to just let the program do it. Plus programs do not get fatigued, although they do make mistakes.
So, to answer your question, you would be lucky to make minimum wage. More likely you would have to be an unpaid intern. There are still a few elderly PCB designers that make $80k per year, but they will be long gone by the time you get to that age.
Pcb Designer Salary