Are Audio Engineers Underpaid? What a Low Job Posting Reveals About Engineer Wages and Self-Worth

This episode almost didn't get released. Dee and Lu spent 20 to 30 minutes before recording debating whether to even touch this one. They went ahead — and it's one of the more honest, nuanced conversations the show has had about money, ego, and what engineers actually owe each other.

The spark: a Facebook post from a professional musician and audio engineer who attended the same college program as Dee, publicly calling out a local arts center for posting a part-time live sound and lighting tech position at $15 to $18 an hour. The post was passionate, pointed, and signed with his full professional credentials. Dee reads it in full, along with the original job listing — which, among other things, requires Yamaha and Allen & Heath console proficiency, QLab and Dante networking experience, 48-channel show operation, set construction, and lighting design, all from one part-time hire.

On its face, it sounds like an easy call. But Dee takes the opposite position — not to be contrarian, but because he thinks the framing of the argument is doing real damage to the underlying point. He walks through the math: 25 hours a week at $18 an hour is a part-time supplemental income while you build your own business on the side. He also breaks down why the moral framing of the original post — treating a low offer as an act of injustice rather than a bad offer you're free to decline — weakens a legitimate case about engineer compensation. A low offer is not an injustice. Nobody is being forced. And presenting it as one, Dee argues, is exactly the kind of righteous indignation that Aldous Huxley described as the most delicious of moral treats.

From there the episode gets into the structural reason audio engineer unions are difficult to sustain: the supply of people who want these jobs vastly outpaces the demand for them, and the barrier to entry is low enough that any coordinated refusal just opens the door to the next wave of hungry beginners. Lu adds his own experience — the times he's accepted well below his rate because the artist interested him, or because the gig gave him room to experiment — and the two land on a shared position: the number you get paid is not directly equivalent to the value of the job, and fighting for higher wages without understanding that nuance means missing the point entirely.

Dee closes with a message to the person directly: the argument is worth making. Clean it up.

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The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

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