Updated
PERM occupation, SOC 17-2199, #179 of 1,410 by filings
Validation Engineer
- Biggest sponsor
- APPLE INC. · 9% of its filings
- Busiest state
- CA · 29% of its filings
- Major group
- Architecture and engineering · SOC 17
Weighing an offer for this job?
Where it falls among certified offers, and the four wage levels DOL sets for it by area.
This rate is level with the field
Over 243 decided filings, this rate can't be told apart from the field in either direction.
Why
The 95% interval runs up to a 7.4% denial rate, which still covers the 3.20% the field as a whole records.
Median wage
$114,991
all PERM $103,272
Filings
244
#179 of 1,410
Approval
95.9%
field 96.8%
Median days
374
103 faster than the field
What it pays
Where its median offer sits among every occupation, then the whole ladder of certified offers by year and by state.
Median offered wage
$114,991above 77%
Approval rate
95.9%ahead of 45%
Median days to decision
374 daysahead of 97%
Each bar counts occupations at that value. More
Who files it
The sponsors and firms with the most PERM filings under this code, the places the work sits, and who the workers were.
Sponsors filing it
- APPLE INC. 22 filings
- Intellectt Inc. 20 filings
- REVEREIT LLC 12 filings
- SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC. 11 filings
- MEDTRONIC, INC. 8 filings
- AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC 7 filings
How this is counted
The employers with the most applications under this code. 80 of 244 filings, 33% of the total.
Firms filing it
- Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen Loewy, LLP 50 filings · 98.0% approved
- Ramineni Shepard, LLC 18 filings
- Greenberg Traurig, LLP 15 filings
- Fredrikson Byron, P.A. 14 filings
- LAW OFFICE OF THOMAS V. ALLEN, PLLC. 14 filings
- Berry Appleman Leiden LLP 9 filings
How this is counted
The law firms named on the most applications under this code. 120 of 244 filings, 49% of the total.
Where the jobs are
- California 70
- New Jersey 40
- Texas 26
- Michigan 14
- Virginia 13
- Massachusetts 12
How this is counted
The worksite state on the application, which is where the job is and not where the company is headquartered. Volume by state across everyone is on the state map. These 6 states cover 175 of 244 filings.
Where the work is
- Cupertino, CA 22
- Iselin, NJ 20
- Fremont, CA 12
- Plano, TX 12
- Sterling, VA 12
- South Plainfield, NJ 11
How this is counted
The worksite city on the application, which is where the job is. These 6 cities cover 89 of 244 filings.
- Every sponsor that files it, by state, approval rate, offered wage and time to a decision
- Every filing for it, PERM, wage requests and H-1B, case by case
Who filled these jobs, FY2016 to FY2023
From DOL's old form; the form in use since mid-2023 doesn't carry them. Top six of each.
Country of citizenship
- India 1,093
- China 267
- Mexico 136
- Canada 105
- South Korea 61
- Brazil 47
Worker's education
- Master's 1,371
- Bachelor's 566
- Doctorate 219
- None 21
- Other 14
- High School 7
Visa held when filed
- H-1B 1,594
- L-1 187
- F-1 134
- TN 104
- E-2 33
- O-1 17
Schools
- CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 52
- ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY 34
- NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY 34
- UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 32
- THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON 29
- PURDUE UNIVERSITY 28
Fields of study
- MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 420
- ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 243
- INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING 111
- CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 69
- ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING 50
- ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING 49
The job itself
What O*NET says the work is, what the market pays it by BLS's survey, its outlook, and DOL's wage levels year by year.
- United States154,070 jobs
- New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJIselin, South Plainfield
- San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CACupertino
- San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CAFremont
- Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TXPlano
- Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WVSterling
- middle half of pay (BLS)
- median
- 10th to 90th percentile
- DOL's Levels I to IV, left to right
- median PERM offer
| Area | BLS median | Level I | Level II | Level III | Level IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $122,930 | ||||
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | $135,300 | $89,170 | $113,942 | $138,715 | $163,488 |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | $169,650 | $105,664 | $138,237 | $170,830 | $203,403 |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $159,800 | $98,051 | $130,146 | $162,261 | $194,355 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | $110,010 | $71,386 | $93,870 | $116,334 | $138,819 |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | $151,340 | $91,395 | $118,123 | $144,830 | $171,558 |
How these figures fit together
BLS surveys employers on what they pay everyone in a job; DOL builds its four levels from the same survey a year later (the July 2026 wage year uses BLS's May 2025 estimates). DOL publishes levels by area, not nationally, so the United States line has none. Levels are hourly in DOL's tables; here they're shown a year at 2,080 hours, as DOL computes them. The metros are the ones holding the most of this job's PERM filings, placed by Census's county files.
The block is the middle half of what employers report paying everyone in this job, citizen or not; the ticks under it are DOL's four prevailing wage levels for that metro, the floors a PERM or H-1B offer is held to. More
DOL's levels for this job in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ, year by year
Each July DOL resets the four levels from BLS's newest survey. A determination keeps the figures of the year it was issued in.
| Wage year | Level I | Level II | Level III | Level IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | $89,170 | $113,942 | $138,715 | $163,488 |
| 2025-26 | $83,346 | $107,224 | $131,102 | $154,981 |
| 2024-25 | $66,726 | $92,186 | $117,624 | $143,083 |
| 2023-24 | $74,006 | $96,346 | $118,664 | $141,003 |
| 2022-23 | $71,885 | $94,619 | $117,354 | $140,088 |
| 2021-22 | $63,523 | $87,630 | $111,717 | $135,824 |
What the job is
All engineers not listed separately.
- DOL's education basis
- Bachelor's degree
- Wage year 2026-27, on DOL's Appendix A list
- Jobs, 2025 to 2035
- +3.7%
- About 8,800 openings a year (BLS)
- Typical entry
- Bachelor's degree
- BLS
O*NET also describes Energy Engineers, Except Wind and Solar, Mechatronics Engineers, Microsystems Engineers, Photonics Engineers, Robotics Engineers, Nanosystems Engineers, Wind Energy Engineers and Solar Energy Systems Engineers under this SOC code.
This section includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database and O*NET OnLine by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. PERM Tracker has modified some of this information (the shares are rounded and only the top tasks are shown); what changed. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.
Against other jobs
Where this sits in the ranking
Ranked 179 of 1,410 by volume: 178 filed at least as many filings, and 1,231 filed no more.
- Just above
- Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary 246 filings
- Just below
- Purchasing Managers 243 filings
Other architecture and engineering roles
Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. More
Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. Wages inside a group still swing hard, because the group holds every seniority level and every metro.
- #188 Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologists and Technicians 231 filings · 8 denied
- #199 Transportation Engineers 218 filings · 2 denied
- #152 Chemical Engineers 318 filings · 6 denied
- #214 Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians 190 filings · 4 denied
- #143 Architectural and Civil Drafters 346 filings · 18 denied
- #139 Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers 364 filings · 6 denied
The same job on H-1B
20,526 certified H-1B labor condition applications for this occupation since FY2020, offering a median of $99,840 a year; the middle half ran $80,000 to $130,000. By state and year in the salary explorer.
Notes on these numbers
Reading the wage
A floor, not a salary survey: every level and metro mixed. DOL's four wage levels for this job, by area.
What the median is
The median wage employers committed to in federal filings for this occupation. It mixes every experience level and every metro, and it's a floor: the employer must offer at least the prevailing wage DOL determines for the occupation, level and county. Across all PERM filings the middle half of offered wages runs $45,178 to $141,357, so a figure inside that band is unremarkable whichever occupation it belongs to. The levels page reads DOL's OFLC wage search live.
What these numbers don't say
4 notes
- The code is the identity
- This one is SOC 17-2199. Two SOC codes can carry the same job title, so a title that looks duplicated on the ranking is two different occupations. Match on the code when you're checking a specific filing.
- A median isn’t an offer
- It's the middle of all 244 wages committed to for this occupation across the country, entry level and principal alike. The same role's medians swing hard by worksite, which the state map shows directly.
- Approval isn’t about the occupation
- The denial rate moves with what happened in the filing rather than with the job title, so nothing here is a property of Validation Engineer. The measured factors are on the denial risk page, published as separate rates.
- Nothing here is pending
- All 244 counted here carry a decision date, because every case in DOL's disclosure files does, so a case still waiting is in none of them. The largest filer of this occupation is APPLE INC.. Where the queue stands today is on the processing times page.
The window these figures cover: DOL's PERM disclosure files for fiscal years 2024 to 2026, through the third quarter of 2026, 373,939 decided cases. Nothing pending is counted here. How each figure is built
Weighing an offer?
Compare it against this median, then check the state map, where the same occupation's medians swing hard by worksite.
Setting one?
All 1,410 occupations sort together on the wages page, and denial rates show how outcome moves with the offered wage.
Filings newer than DOL's last published file can't be attributed to this occupation until DOL publishes them. The live list on the case search page carries them by employer.
Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly
Employers and firms: Derived from the disclosure corpus · data through Aug 26, 2026 · rebuilt with each quarterly ingest
O*NET occupation data: O*NET Database, USDOL/ETA (onetcenter.org) · data through Aug 16, 2026 · twice a year
BLS market pay: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (bls.gov) · data through May 31, 2025 · yearly, each spring
BLS employment projections: BLS Employment Projections (bls.gov) · data through Dec 31, 2025 · yearly, each autumn
DOL wage tables: DOL OFLC wage data downloads (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jul 1, 2026 · yearly, each july
What each source includes
Case data: Decided PERM cases only. A case still waiting isn't in here, so counts and durations describe finished cases.
Employers and firms: Employers, law firms and occupations ranked from decided cases only.
O*NET occupation data: What O*NET says each occupation is and takes: its description, tasks, Job Zone and the education workers report. A description of the job everywhere, not of any one employer's opening.
BLS market pay: What employers report paying everyone in each job, nationally, by state and by metro, from BLS's yearly survey (May of the year named). Citizens and immigrants alike; not PERM offers.
BLS employment projections: BLS's ten-year projection of each job's employment and yearly openings, and the entry education it calls typical. A projection, not a count.
DOL wage tables: The four prevailing wage levels DOL publishes for every job in every area, each wage year from 2021-22, as DOL's own tables print them. The floors an offer is held to, not what anyone was paid.
Cite this page
Waiting on a PERM case?
- When it'll likely be decided
- An email when DOL moves it