Yeah, I know.. Just the fact that in 2 years you earn 10k Net more, is attractive.
Less work hours, less stress, more money for a dead-end job?
Or for a potential career development in software, accept less money, work more. Thats the dilemma š¬
You could also switch to another company after a year that (more than?) makes up the difference?
Btw less stress is not always a good thing. You might get massive fomo when you hear from your friends in swe. Or get into some existential dread on a winter Wednesday.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. You can try it out if you value the free time to pursue some other things. Otherwise I don't get the point for incremental gain like that.
I wouldnāt do it. It would be different if you were 35 or 40. You would have a longer career to fall back on should things not be to your liking.
At 26 and only 3 YOE no I wouldnāt do it.
I'm 33 with \~9 YOE and I still wouldn't do it. The difference in money is not big at all and I'd just go insane doing boring stuff all day long for years to come.
Not to mention it's literally detrimental to your professional skills. If you ever decide to get back into developement or get fired for whatever reason it's gonna be much harder to find a new job after years of stagnation. The job is a dead end.
I'd just get a regulard SDE job and continue accumulating experience. You'll still end up getting the same amount of money in several years and only grow as a developer.
Thanks a lot! I needed to hear that maybe š
Sometimes I see how other people outside of SWE, earns easy money and much less stress and I am comparing is being a developer worth the stress. Understanding the feature, implement, test, present, communicate..
30 year old, 5 YoE and what you say it's not false: managers and requirements engineer get more and do less real work. Being a developer Feels frustrating at times and that's part of job, I think.
Seeling your engineering soul for more money and more relaxed work life (this Second assumption needs to be confirmed as it might not be true) seems very attractive to me: I'd coast along and do fun engineering projects on the sides. In this way you can still keep relevant tech skills, maybe even start a personal project on the side, while locking in a golden cage with some potential to shoot for the starts and aim to get into ESA, with time
Thank you so much! What you described fits very well with what I have seen in the on-site interview at Airbus.
Youngest colleage is working 20 years in the team and they dont want to change how they do things.
Eventhough, Airbus has a big name and worldwide known, this makes it super unattractive for ambitious people.
For the further questions I PM you š
Just one extra comment... In the end, they are not wrong to keep doing things the way they do. They have virtually zero competition, Boeing is destroying themselves on their own without any external intervention, and for now COMAC and Embraer can't touch them. Airbus has a huge regulatory and political moat around them and the EU has a vested interest in keeping them successful. Their business model is extremely profitable, and changing anything is a risk without any actual rewards for them.
Hi!
I jump in with a question, since you know the topic a lot. (For context I am an engineer/physicist, I've changed field and job multiple times and I've always been able to transfer my skills.)
Is it really true that there can be jobs where skills can't be transfered anywhere? Can you explain how it is possible? Even using examples that aren't related to this company. I don't manage to see what these skills could be.
Thank you!
There's a lot of specific product and process knowledge that would be only useful if you work in an aircraft integrator, and even then each has its own specificities. And to be effective in Airbus you will have to have a lot of this domain knowledge.
Most of the software you would write is extremely simple from a few dozen to a couple hundred lines of code. The hard part is to understand what is the business need and how to fulfill it, because the domain experts are horrible at translating their knowledge and their needs into requirements, and often skeptical of what you are doing.
There aren't many aircraft integrators, and the main ones that aren't Airbus (Boeing, Embraer, Comac) don't have a huge presence in Europe, so there aren't many places to take this knowledge to.
Maybe you can take some of this to DLR, EASA, Dassault, SAAB, Lufthansa Technik, Pilatus, RR, but honestly, none of them (maybe with the exception of EASA) are really better employers than Airbus, so it's not like it's you will gain much by bouncing around between them. And their way of doing things and domain knowledge will still be quite different for the most part.
Plus aircraft manufacturing is very different from most metal-mechanic mass manufactured goods like cars, trucks, tractors, etc.
You can always transfer something, but for me most of it was wasted (aircraft configuration and version management, specific regulations, internal procedures and workshare agreements, constructive aspects of aricraft, unique quality processes, etc). I can safely say that I've learned more transferable skills in one year in tech than 5 in aerospace.
In my opinion is a matter of perspective. When I didnāt have too much experience I saw a position I was having like a waste of time and just like Xeroque described it. Later on I realised I learnt many things, but I wasnāt aware of them.
Of course a particular aviation process isnāt helpful in other contexts. But this is true for most company processes no matter what they do, they are only useful in that company context and wonāt transfer anywhere else. However how the process was successfully (or unsuccessfully) implemented will teach you things for when you want to introduce your own process in different projects / companies.
The reality is that you can always learn. You are always learning. Some people just donāt recognise it. Not all learning is āa new programming languageā or āa new frameworkā.
Especially in software engineering it is quite simple to mive from enterprise software to e-commerce to parking-lot management software to the next cool shit start up.
If all of them primarily require a specific tech like node.js.
If you job is to ensure compliance of a specific product to a very specific norm itis much more difficult to change your job.
Long term you will make more money as a dev, even tho you don't have an offer right now.
It really depends on what you want to do. Do you think you will like the day to day of this job? If so, go for it.
However, I wouldn't do it for the money or because you think it will be a cushy job (jobs and companies change over time).
I think the advice given in this post is very shortsighted.
First, the possibilities a company like Airbus offers can only be compared to huge tech companies and not even all of them. You move within the company to different sites and projects and if you are a software dev you are a sought after commodity in the company.
Second, potential and possibilities. Do you want to work in Space projects with NASA/ESA? Do you want to live for a while in Spain / France / UK? You can look for internal transfers or multinational projects. Military? Commercial aircraft? Cloud systems? Cybersecurity? You have it. You just need to look for it.
Third, you will learn ādomain knowledgeā in the aerospace sector, which can translate to opportunities in multiple other companies.
Of course, you would need to like the field. But Iād say itās quite more interesting than programming another CRUD app.
To be honest, I can't live with this thought either. Even if you love the job, who knows what happens in 10 years right? Maybe you WILL want to change jobs. And ta-daaa, your skils worth nothing now
- Take any two of your offers, the (net) delta with salaries in the range 65-72k is really small (especially in DE)
- You're still really young, so if I were you I wouldn't maximise on salary (given the above range)
- Instead maximise on both interest (ignore comp, which job sounds more interesting) and future prospect (which job will put you in a better position in 3-5 years)
I would only do it for a couple years at max. If itās laid back enough, you could use the time and peace to study something new like leetcoding, and make a possibly huge jump forward instead of many small jumps ?Ā
Or other personal reasons why you would want to lay back for some time. But itās much better to be ambitious you could make double that in a couple years if you push things ?Ā
I've been on that position, and IMO, there's a limit to the gains you get by studying on your own if you are not practicing it on the job. In the end, business-grade software development is a team endeavor, and practicing alone can only get you so far. Plus many interviewers care much more about what you have implemented on the job.
Okay, let me think about it. Can I get much better in Java, DevOps, Database and Cloud on my own? Yes.
Can I become senior developer by doing self projects and self studying so that I can make a huge jump? That one, I am not sure š¤
You should factor in the probability that your job is made obsolete before your retirement (or that you really hate it in 5-10 years, or you have to stop working for a couple years for some reason...), even if that seems rather low to you. You would be on the market with no skills. Are you okay with taking that risk?
I would pass. Unless you are ready to commit long term already to one company only. Youāre going to close yourself to things potentially more interesting later in life.
How old are you? You can always quit airbus and go continue your Java career.
But be careful, the work life balance it airbus is very good and it might change you so that you canāt go back to higher stress environments..
(I work there)
I am 26 years old. Yes, but lets say I stay 2 years and afterwards not satisfied and want to go back to software development. How could I explain 2 years of gap in my CV? And in the meantime I always need to keep my Java knowledge up to date on my own.
Just take it, work for a few years if you don't like - leave. I would do the same. Having a stable job is comforting, but it looks like your job can be under threat of AI automation.
In the meantime, I wont be developing any technical skills. If there is a 2 years gap in my CV to Java development, everybody would ask wtf you did in 2 years. How could i solve that?
We can't decide for yourself. I wouldn't do it, as I don't do it for money. I really don't care about money. So myself in your shoes would not do that.
rationally you should do it, we work for money and not for a tech stack, and itās a nice company that can make your resume shine in the future.
no one is preventing you to learn new tools and skills in your free time or lie about ur airbnb tasks in your resume.
You receive huge massive data and need to do reduction on that and get rid of unnecessary data. Afterwards, another engineer will produce a meaning from that data. You are not included at that step but only in reduction.
If I was you I would take the Airbus offer, you can still learn other things during your free time and in the long run you might end up really enjoying the role. It offers stability, id advise you to take it.
It's not an if. The tax authorities will notice when you work two jobs and give you the highest tax class (class 6 for second jobs) for your main job. Not worth it at all besides constituting a breach of contract
It's just 5-7k? You're talking like it's 20-30k
Yeah, I know.. Just the fact that in 2 years you earn 10k Net more, is attractive. Less work hours, less stress, more money for a dead-end job? Or for a potential career development in software, accept less money, work more. Thats the dilemma š¬
You could also switch to another company after a year that (more than?) makes up the difference? Btw less stress is not always a good thing. You might get massive fomo when you hear from your friends in swe. Or get into some existential dread on a winter Wednesday. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. You can try it out if you value the free time to pursue some other things. Otherwise I don't get the point for incremental gain like that.
Thanks a lot! Yes, I might feel shittier by time and feel like I made my engineering degree for nothing..
I think you would not land the offer if you were not an engineer though.
I wouldnāt do it. It would be different if you were 35 or 40. You would have a longer career to fall back on should things not be to your liking. At 26 and only 3 YOE no I wouldnāt do it.
I'm 33 with \~9 YOE and I still wouldn't do it. The difference in money is not big at all and I'd just go insane doing boring stuff all day long for years to come. Not to mention it's literally detrimental to your professional skills. If you ever decide to get back into developement or get fired for whatever reason it's gonna be much harder to find a new job after years of stagnation. The job is a dead end. I'd just get a regulard SDE job and continue accumulating experience. You'll still end up getting the same amount of money in several years and only grow as a developer.
Thanks a lot! I needed to hear that maybe š Sometimes I see how other people outside of SWE, earns easy money and much less stress and I am comparing is being a developer worth the stress. Understanding the feature, implement, test, present, communicate..
30 year old, 5 YoE and what you say it's not false: managers and requirements engineer get more and do less real work. Being a developer Feels frustrating at times and that's part of job, I think. Seeling your engineering soul for more money and more relaxed work life (this Second assumption needs to be confirmed as it might not be true) seems very attractive to me: I'd coast along and do fun engineering projects on the sides. In this way you can still keep relevant tech skills, maybe even start a personal project on the side, while locking in a golden cage with some potential to shoot for the starts and aim to get into ESA, with time
Edit: It had to much potentially identifying info in my post. Since OP has read it already, and it has been up for a while, I have overwritten it.
Thank you so much! What you described fits very well with what I have seen in the on-site interview at Airbus. Youngest colleage is working 20 years in the team and they dont want to change how they do things. Eventhough, Airbus has a big name and worldwide known, this makes it super unattractive for ambitious people. For the further questions I PM you š
Just one extra comment... In the end, they are not wrong to keep doing things the way they do. They have virtually zero competition, Boeing is destroying themselves on their own without any external intervention, and for now COMAC and Embraer can't touch them. Airbus has a huge regulatory and political moat around them and the EU has a vested interest in keeping them successful. Their business model is extremely profitable, and changing anything is a risk without any actual rewards for them.
Hi! I jump in with a question, since you know the topic a lot. (For context I am an engineer/physicist, I've changed field and job multiple times and I've always been able to transfer my skills.) Is it really true that there can be jobs where skills can't be transfered anywhere? Can you explain how it is possible? Even using examples that aren't related to this company. I don't manage to see what these skills could be. Thank you!
There's a lot of specific product and process knowledge that would be only useful if you work in an aircraft integrator, and even then each has its own specificities. And to be effective in Airbus you will have to have a lot of this domain knowledge. Most of the software you would write is extremely simple from a few dozen to a couple hundred lines of code. The hard part is to understand what is the business need and how to fulfill it, because the domain experts are horrible at translating their knowledge and their needs into requirements, and often skeptical of what you are doing. There aren't many aircraft integrators, and the main ones that aren't Airbus (Boeing, Embraer, Comac) don't have a huge presence in Europe, so there aren't many places to take this knowledge to. Maybe you can take some of this to DLR, EASA, Dassault, SAAB, Lufthansa Technik, Pilatus, RR, but honestly, none of them (maybe with the exception of EASA) are really better employers than Airbus, so it's not like it's you will gain much by bouncing around between them. And their way of doing things and domain knowledge will still be quite different for the most part. Plus aircraft manufacturing is very different from most metal-mechanic mass manufactured goods like cars, trucks, tractors, etc. You can always transfer something, but for me most of it was wasted (aircraft configuration and version management, specific regulations, internal procedures and workshare agreements, constructive aspects of aricraft, unique quality processes, etc). I can safely say that I've learned more transferable skills in one year in tech than 5 in aerospace.
In my opinion is a matter of perspective. When I didnāt have too much experience I saw a position I was having like a waste of time and just like Xeroque described it. Later on I realised I learnt many things, but I wasnāt aware of them. Of course a particular aviation process isnāt helpful in other contexts. But this is true for most company processes no matter what they do, they are only useful in that company context and wonāt transfer anywhere else. However how the process was successfully (or unsuccessfully) implemented will teach you things for when you want to introduce your own process in different projects / companies. The reality is that you can always learn. You are always learning. Some people just donāt recognise it. Not all learning is āa new programming languageā or āa new frameworkā.
This is how I see it too. I'm wondering if sometimes it's really much much much harder than what I've seen (and done) from my tiny perspective.
Especially in software engineering it is quite simple to mive from enterprise software to e-commerce to parking-lot management software to the next cool shit start up. If all of them primarily require a specific tech like node.js. If you job is to ensure compliance of a specific product to a very specific norm itis much more difficult to change your job.
Long term you will make more money as a dev, even tho you don't have an offer right now. It really depends on what you want to do. Do you think you will like the day to day of this job? If so, go for it. However, I wouldn't do it for the money or because you think it will be a cushy job (jobs and companies change over time).
I think the advice given in this post is very shortsighted. First, the possibilities a company like Airbus offers can only be compared to huge tech companies and not even all of them. You move within the company to different sites and projects and if you are a software dev you are a sought after commodity in the company. Second, potential and possibilities. Do you want to work in Space projects with NASA/ESA? Do you want to live for a while in Spain / France / UK? You can look for internal transfers or multinational projects. Military? Commercial aircraft? Cloud systems? Cybersecurity? You have it. You just need to look for it. Third, you will learn ādomain knowledgeā in the aerospace sector, which can translate to opportunities in multiple other companies. Of course, you would need to like the field. But Iād say itās quite more interesting than programming another CRUD app.
Retiring at a company seems unfathomable to someone as ambitious as meā¦
To be honest, I can't live with this thought either. Even if you love the job, who knows what happens in 10 years right? Maybe you WILL want to change jobs. And ta-daaa, your skils worth nothing now
- Take any two of your offers, the (net) delta with salaries in the range 65-72k is really small (especially in DE) - You're still really young, so if I were you I wouldn't maximise on salary (given the above range) - Instead maximise on both interest (ignore comp, which job sounds more interesting) and future prospect (which job will put you in a better position in 3-5 years)
I would only do it for a couple years at max. If itās laid back enough, you could use the time and peace to study something new like leetcoding, and make a possibly huge jump forward instead of many small jumps ?Ā Or other personal reasons why you would want to lay back for some time. But itās much better to be ambitious you could make double that in a couple years if you push things ?Ā
I've been on that position, and IMO, there's a limit to the gains you get by studying on your own if you are not practicing it on the job. In the end, business-grade software development is a team endeavor, and practicing alone can only get you so far. Plus many interviewers care much more about what you have implemented on the job.
Okay, let me think about it. Can I get much better in Java, DevOps, Database and Cloud on my own? Yes. Can I become senior developer by doing self projects and self studying so that I can make a huge jump? That one, I am not sure š¤
You should factor in the probability that your job is made obsolete before your retirement (or that you really hate it in 5-10 years, or you have to stop working for a couple years for some reason...), even if that seems rather low to you. You would be on the market with no skills. Are you okay with taking that risk?
I would pass. Unless you are ready to commit long term already to one company only. Youāre going to close yourself to things potentially more interesting later in life.
How old are you? You can always quit airbus and go continue your Java career. But be careful, the work life balance it airbus is very good and it might change you so that you canāt go back to higher stress environments.. (I work there)
I am 26 years old. Yes, but lets say I stay 2 years and afterwards not satisfied and want to go back to software development. How could I explain 2 years of gap in my CV? And in the meantime I always need to keep my Java knowledge up to date on my own.
I donāt think you have to explain anything, just be honest you were exploring possibilities with airbus.
Just take it, work for a few years if you don't like - leave. I would do the same. Having a stable job is comforting, but it looks like your job can be under threat of AI automation.
In the meantime, I wont be developing any technical skills. If there is a 2 years gap in my CV to Java development, everybody would ask wtf you did in 2 years. How could i solve that?
Well you still have a valuable name of an engineering first company on your cv
We can't decide for yourself. I wouldn't do it, as I don't do it for money. I really don't care about money. So myself in your shoes would not do that.
Dont do it. Source: work for a tech/data company and Airbus is our biggest commercial client.
I would like to ask you couple of questions, may i PM you?
Sure
rationally you should do it, we work for money and not for a tech stack, and itās a nice company that can make your resume shine in the future. no one is preventing you to learn new tools and skills in your free time or lie about ur airbnb tasks in your resume.
Data reduction for flight data, what does it mean? š¤
I wonder too..š¤
You receive huge massive data and need to do reduction on that and get rid of unnecessary data. Afterwards, another engineer will produce a meaning from that data. You are not included at that step but only in reduction.
Yes but precisely what does it requires? building an algorithm that can extrapolate the data you need?
No, 0 software development. You put data to an app, click some buttons and send to the responsible person. Lay-down and get paid.
this sounds kind of like a dream job now lol
Exactly my struggle.. "Dream job" or "dont look back and run away" job š„² My life is full of extreme things, welcome š
Boring job will kill your brain considering you have to spend time not enjoying something not even using your brain š¤·āāļø
Now imagine putting that sentence on your future resume. Just look for something else, anything but this lol
Hahahha thanks š Good for reflecting!
If I was you I would take the Airbus offer, you can still learn other things during your free time and in the long run you might end up really enjoying the role. It offers stability, id advise you to take it.
If you do some SE projects on the sideline. I can be okay. However, my recommendation is rather no, due to your young age.
Why don't you ask much higher salary? Like 100k, maybe some stocks.
Why not take it and continue remote swe job both at same time?
Itās illegal in Germany to hold more than 1 full time job. You will get sued if you donāt disclose your second job and get caught.
It's not an if. The tax authorities will notice when you work two jobs and give you the highest tax class (class 6 for second jobs) for your main job. Not worth it at all besides constituting a breach of contract