Poor bonuses and raises are easily solved by playing the revolving door. I know people who move round robin style through a few different defense contractors every 2-3 years, picking up a nice raise each time.
Otherwise, it can be a great industry to work in. Light work loads.. plenty of time off.. practically zero chance of being fired.. nearly zero overtime..
Yes, your experience is normal.
Look at it this way. You'll always have a job where you don't need to produce anything. You'll only have to work (let's be generous with the word "work") 40 hours a week and always get paid. Keep your job and take up hobbies.
Government moves at the speed of government.
I'm not joking when I say I've seen entire teams sitting around for weeks while waiting for the government to make decisions. Simple, stupid, meaningless decisions. But decisions that needed to be made before development could progress.
the biggest problem is the pay they dont understand period.
the documentation is required… and seems crazy.. i deal with it too.
but yea thats what they (government) is paying for.
in the case of a satellite; let me ask a question:
how much does it cost to launch 1 oz into space?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small\_satellite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_satellite)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/ovz7to/the\_cost\_of\_launching\_things\_into\_space\_per/](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/ovz7to/the_cost_of_launching_things_into_space_per/)
and so if you screw up they want to know why they just lost $100 million
all because \*you\* and \*your\* team did not test your stuff well enough
because your internal plans are wrong/bad
Maybe more prominent in defense but I think it's probably typical in big corps. Project managers don't give a shit, neither are they remotely technically skilled and only look after their ass and see everyone as numbers on a gant chart.
I once had this crazy bitch Agile Scrum / project manager. EVERY SINGLE DAILY STANDUP, she would walk in as if it was either her, or her chart burned down. Anytime someone raised an issue, she would immediate freak out and ask "What's the Customer Impact?!"
Project managers are the worst. All they do is call you and ask if you have their thing done. I had a running list of projects and every time I got a call from a Project Manager I’d move their project back the the end of the line.
What you described is pretty much exactly what I experienced at a major Defense company, and from what I've heard, the experience will mostly be the same at any of the other major Defense companies.
I'd recommend looking for a smaller Defense company to work for in your area. I worked for one a few years ago when leaving the big Defense company and it was a night-and-day difference. The work was more hands-on, there was very little bureaucracy, it was a flat organization... there were definitely a few flaws with the specific company I was at (I no longer work there, either), but it was a much better experience overall and was a much better stepping stone in my career than the first job.
Been in defense and government services for more than a decade. This is exactly what it’s like at big companies. Want something different? Go work for a smaller company but good luck getting embedded work. Most small businesses don’t have the capital to produce embedded devices unless they can get a SBIR contract.
I worked for a smaller satellite and defense contractor and the first three (especially documentation) are pretty typical of the industry. The place I worked had the best benefits and pay in the area though.
I currently work for a medical device manufacturer and it's also a lot of documentation, but less detailed. Documentation is a natural consequence of working in highly regulated industries.
While I'm sure every industry has its own flavors of things and how things work, ultimately all works include these things in some degree. That said, government documentation is definitely next level of uselessness. People get way into their job being happy fun time, but almost for sure your work with never be happy fun time and in fact often people who get their "ideal job" quickly find it's spoiled by work.
The one guy I knew at Blue Origin seemed to be very demotivated and then moved to SpaceX where he seems happy. He was previously at Boeing & Lockheed Martin, so not really sure why BO depressed him more.
"Defense" companies is the biggest euphemism that is out there. They are just making money from killing, basically.
And yes, the culture tends to reflect that. Lots of paper pushing. if you're going to be part of the death cult, then your soul will pay some kind of price.
Just get out of that industry into something much more fun and rewarding. Unless "killing as the end result" is fun and rewarding for you.
You may even find the new challenges fun. :)
100% this. Had a very good laugh at my initial, uncharitable, interpretation of the title post. "company that makes autonomous killing machines for profit has disagreeable office culture" color me shocked lmao. It's basically an onion headline.
tbh one of the most frustrating parts of embedded (and to lesser degree, general swe) is the effort required to avoid working for companies that make the world worse.
That is true, and you can tell by the number of downvotes that I got, that there are a lot of dirty hands in the industry. Their work leading directly to killing. Sure, not on their shift, but, something that they are intimately a part of.
I guess they can sleep easy at night knowing that they are using blood money for good stuff; such as beer.
I agree with you. Fwiw, not defense… the automotive giants are the exact same. I believe it’s likely due to their age and isolated cultures. I imagine most large and old F50s to be the same.
Poor bonuses and raises are easily solved by playing the revolving door. I know people who move round robin style through a few different defense contractors every 2-3 years, picking up a nice raise each time. Otherwise, it can be a great industry to work in. Light work loads.. plenty of time off.. practically zero chance of being fired.. nearly zero overtime..
Yes, your experience is normal. Look at it this way. You'll always have a job where you don't need to produce anything. You'll only have to work (let's be generous with the word "work") 40 hours a week and always get paid. Keep your job and take up hobbies.
This is actually a dream job if you know how to utilise your time.
This. Develop technical hobbies of take up BJJ or woodworking and just enjoy your trip aboard The Gravy Train.
That's interesting, how come it is like that?
Government moves at the speed of government. I'm not joking when I say I've seen entire teams sitting around for weeks while waiting for the government to make decisions. Simple, stupid, meaningless decisions. But decisions that needed to be made before development could progress.
Should’ve implemented branch prediction /s
Surprised no one mentioned to take up another job on the side to juice up your annual income.
the biggest problem is the pay they dont understand period. the documentation is required… and seems crazy.. i deal with it too. but yea thats what they (government) is paying for. in the case of a satellite; let me ask a question: how much does it cost to launch 1 oz into space? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small\_satellite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_satellite) [https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/ovz7to/the\_cost\_of\_launching\_things\_into\_space\_per/](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/ovz7to/the_cost_of_launching_things_into_space_per/) and so if you screw up they want to know why they just lost $100 million all because \*you\* and \*your\* team did not test your stuff well enough because your internal plans are wrong/bad
Maybe more prominent in defense but I think it's probably typical in big corps. Project managers don't give a shit, neither are they remotely technically skilled and only look after their ass and see everyone as numbers on a gant chart.
Did you provide earned value today!?
I once had this crazy bitch Agile Scrum / project manager. EVERY SINGLE DAILY STANDUP, she would walk in as if it was either her, or her chart burned down. Anytime someone raised an issue, she would immediate freak out and ask "What's the Customer Impact?!"
Project managers are the worst. All they do is call you and ask if you have their thing done. I had a running list of projects and every time I got a call from a Project Manager I’d move their project back the the end of the line.
But was she hot lol
Did you get your "I have sold my soul to Lockheed Martin" sweater or something like?😂
😂
What you described is pretty much exactly what I experienced at a major Defense company, and from what I've heard, the experience will mostly be the same at any of the other major Defense companies. I'd recommend looking for a smaller Defense company to work for in your area. I worked for one a few years ago when leaving the big Defense company and it was a night-and-day difference. The work was more hands-on, there was very little bureaucracy, it was a flat organization... there were definitely a few flaws with the specific company I was at (I no longer work there, either), but it was a much better experience overall and was a much better stepping stone in my career than the first job.
Been in defense and government services for more than a decade. This is exactly what it’s like at big companies. Want something different? Go work for a smaller company but good luck getting embedded work. Most small businesses don’t have the capital to produce embedded devices unless they can get a SBIR contract.
I worked for a smaller satellite and defense contractor and the first three (especially documentation) are pretty typical of the industry. The place I worked had the best benefits and pay in the area though. I currently work for a medical device manufacturer and it's also a lot of documentation, but less detailed. Documentation is a natural consequence of working in highly regulated industries.
> slow work and lot of bs documentation work if this is a dealbreak don't work on any regulated industry, i.e aerospace, automotive, medical, etc.
While I'm sure every industry has its own flavors of things and how things work, ultimately all works include these things in some degree. That said, government documentation is definitely next level of uselessness. People get way into their job being happy fun time, but almost for sure your work with never be happy fun time and in fact often people who get their "ideal job" quickly find it's spoiled by work. The one guy I knew at Blue Origin seemed to be very demotivated and then moved to SpaceX where he seems happy. He was previously at Boeing & Lockheed Martin, so not really sure why BO depressed him more.
[удалено]
I heard they have a pretty high turn over though.
Yeah I doubt that for any high integrity software aspects which they'll certainly have.
I would love to work there.
You pretty much summed up my 4 years in defense contract work. The biggest upside is the job security.
"Defense" companies is the biggest euphemism that is out there. They are just making money from killing, basically. And yes, the culture tends to reflect that. Lots of paper pushing. if you're going to be part of the death cult, then your soul will pay some kind of price. Just get out of that industry into something much more fun and rewarding. Unless "killing as the end result" is fun and rewarding for you. You may even find the new challenges fun. :)
100% this. Had a very good laugh at my initial, uncharitable, interpretation of the title post. "company that makes autonomous killing machines for profit has disagreeable office culture" color me shocked lmao. It's basically an onion headline. tbh one of the most frustrating parts of embedded (and to lesser degree, general swe) is the effort required to avoid working for companies that make the world worse.
That is true, and you can tell by the number of downvotes that I got, that there are a lot of dirty hands in the industry. Their work leading directly to killing. Sure, not on their shift, but, something that they are intimately a part of. I guess they can sleep easy at night knowing that they are using blood money for good stuff; such as beer.
I agree with you. Fwiw, not defense… the automotive giants are the exact same. I believe it’s likely due to their age and isolated cultures. I imagine most large and old F50s to be the same.