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Defense contractors set their own payscales but also compete on price. I know software engineers right now earning north of 150K. Also, overtime is paid and b
by sesteel 7y ago
Defense contractors set their own payscales but also compete on price. I know software engineers right now earning north of 150K. Also, overtime is paid and billed in defense. Thus, if you do work overtime, your defense contractor wants to bill it and you get paid for it. My first year out of school I made nearly 100K on a 67K salary because of billed overtime. This was in 2003.
There is also the fact that finding ways to get more ads in front of people is not inherently motivating for some engineers when compared to building space systems or solving other interesting problems like deconflicting telescope laser alignment with satellite orbits.
- vonmoltke 7y ago> Also, overtime is paid and billed in defense. Thus, if you do work overtime, your defense contractor wants to bill it and you get paid for it. My first year out of school I made nearly 100K on a 67K salary because of billed overtime. This was in 2003. When I worked at Raytheon (2002 - 2012) overtime had to be pre-approved (not every contract was eligible) and you had to work at least 8 extra hours in a week to get paid overtime (the 8 hours were paid if you hit the threshold; 7.5 and you didn't get anything extra). There was also an expectation, at least on my program, that you would be working overtime if it was authorized.
- sesteel 7y agoCompanies have different rules and expectations. I was paid for every overtime hour I worked. Early in my career I was still learning and it was worthwhile, both financially and technically, right out of school. It can simply be a 9 to 5 job which is different than the commercial world I work in now where I don't get paid for extra time.