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I wonder if this project has struggled so much, because of the increasing difficulty in acquiring talent and talent getting poached in tech. Perhaps they left

I wonder if this project has struggled so much, because of the increasing difficulty in acquiring talent and talent getting poached in tech. Perhaps they left for SpaceX. I'm sure a project like this has an intense amount of technical debt that needs a stable workforce in order to churn out a quality product.

ra1n85 11y ago
Agreed, but I think there's more to it. The tech industry has a lot of turnover in general. I would imagine that turnover is only aggravated when you throw in short term contracts and a high demand for cleared individuals.
- adrianN 11y ago
  Add the most ancient dev environment you can imagine, a hugely bureaucratic process, waterfall... you can imagine the kind of programmer who stays.
  - jcadam 11y ago
    I'll point out salaries for cleared software engineers tend to be above-average. I've looked outside the defense industry (often) and haven't yet found another company willing to match (or beat) my current salary.
GVIrish 11y ago
This project has struggled because the concept is fundamentally flawed, and when those fundamental flaws started causing problems the program kept cutting corners, ignoring reality, and making bigger and bigger bad bets. From the start there was the idea of one aircraft for three services with a STOVL requirement and stealth was a huge gamble. Then, inexplicably the DoD decided that instead of providing detailed requirements for the platform like they usually did, they would let the contractor write many of the requirements since 'they have the expertise in building warplanes'. Then, on top of that they decided to implement concurrent development, where they'd be doing testing and verification of the aircraft in parallel with production. In theory this would save time but in practice the reason you do testing and verification before production is to avoid expensive retrofits when problems are identified. Of course, many expensive retrofits have resulted. On numerous occasions performance requirements have been lowered, deadlines blown, and the cost is tracking to be so expensive that it's making the F-22 look like a bargain. Then there's the fact that production of parts of this program are spread out over 47 states, meaning every Congressman has incentive not to stop this runaway freight train of waste and negligence.
engi_nerd 11y ago
Yes, this industry requires a stable workforce of bright, motivated people to produce a high quality product. Things are looking uncertain as the systems design and development phase comes to an end and follow on testing begins.

ra1n85 11y ago

Agreed, but I think there's more to it. The tech industry has a lot of turnover in general. I would imagine that turnover is only aggravated when you throw in short term contracts and a high demand for cleared individuals.

adrianN 11y ago
Add the most ancient dev environment you can imagine, a hugely bureaucratic process, waterfall... you can imagine the kind of programmer who stays.
- jcadam 11y ago
  I'll point out salaries for cleared software engineers tend to be above-average. I've looked outside the defense industry (often) and haven't yet found another company willing to match (or beat) my current salary.

GVIrish 11y ago

This project has struggled because the concept is fundamentally flawed, and when those fundamental flaws started causing problems the program kept cutting corners, ignoring reality, and making bigger and bigger bad bets. From the start there was the idea of one aircraft for three services with a STOVL requirement and stealth was a huge gamble. Then, inexplicably the DoD decided that instead of providing detailed requirements for the platform like they usually did, they would let the contractor write many of the requirements since 'they have the expertise in building warplanes'. Then, on top of that they decided to implement concurrent development, where they'd be doing testing and verification of the aircraft in parallel with production. In theory this would save time but in practice the reason you do testing and verification before production is to avoid expensive retrofits when problems are identified. Of course, many expensive retrofits have resulted. On numerous occasions performance requirements have been lowered, deadlines blown, and the cost is tracking to be so expensive that it's making the F-22 look like a bargain. Then there's the fact that production of parts of this program are spread out over 47 states, meaning every Congressman has incentive not to stop this runaway freight train of waste and negligence.

engi_nerd 11y ago

Yes, this industry requires a stable workforce of bright, motivated people to produce a high quality product. Things are looking uncertain as the systems design and development phase comes to an end and follow on testing begins.