tell us about your job

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

What do you do? Aerospace Engineer

Do you like it? Yes

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'm good at math and physics type stuff. I'm generally pretty good at learning new things and applying my knowledge to a variety of problems.

What kind of people do best in your work? Smart, anal, damn near autistic freaks not scared of actually using all the stuff they learned in school in real-life applications. Weed it down further by requiring good communications skills - we're not english majors by any stretch, but effective presentation and report writing skills are a must.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? Generically, an engineering degree, usually in aerospace or mechanical engineering, but there are also some civils and a few other random majors. My job specifically pretty much requires at least a masters in aerospace or mechanical engineering. It should be from a pretty good school, too, if you want to get a second look with us.

What is a typical day like? I work for an engineering consulting company, which means I see a much larger variety of projects than someone who just works for, say, Lockheed Martin or Orbital Sciences. I currently have a home office that I work out of, but some customers want me to work on-site. The basic day-to-day operation is pretty boring on the surface, but in the grand scheme of things, the job is pretty cool. Whether I'm working from home or on-site at the customer's office, I generally sit in front of the computer all day, building models of various structures for a pretty decent variety of analyses. Right now, I'm working on a couple dynamics problems. One is a separation event for the next manned space vehicle, CEV/Orion. The other is the deployment of a solar array for a small research satellite. I also do a lot of standard structural stress and dynamics/response analysis work on everything from satellite buses to various launch vehicle components to more down-to-earth things like Harley Davidson fuel tanks or even xerox machines and Disney rides.

The not-typical-but-not-uncommon day involves various meetings and design reviews, travel to customer sites, and structural tests (shaking and breaking stuff).

What kind of problems do you encounter? One typical problem is in dealing with people who don't realize how much time and effort it takes to do what I do. The nature of my job is such that I'm also usually under a pretty tight schedule trying to get information from people who are also on tight schedules, so their stuff gets to me late and that pushes me even closer to my deadlines. Right now, I'm on two big projects that both have big reviews this week and next week. It's not fun when deadlines land on top of each other.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? I guess my previous answer pretty much takes care of the frustration part. I'm not sure that "elation" is the right word, but it's pretty cool when I get through a big review and I can see the looks on all the (non-rocket-scientist) faces. It's usually a mix of "wow I barely understood what the hell he was doing or how he figured it out, but it was pretty cool" to "great job, kid."

How much can one expect to make in your position? Engineers make good, but not eye-popping salaries. I started at around $60k. I've been full-time for about 4 years now, which is kind of a 'tweener position where you can probably expect anywhere between about $65k to $80k a year plus bonuses and maybe stock options, depending on the company and your qualifications. $100k is probably not too far down the road. If you've got enough experience and/or guts, you can probably make upwards of $200k-$300k going out on your own, but it's very risky and you better be pretty damned good and willing to move to where the work is when it dries up in one place. I'm not sure how much exactly the more senior people make at my company, but I do know they've got some ridiculous houses in some pretty expensive San Diego neighborhoods.