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There is something different that happens in a vertically integrated engineering firms. In the event of a critical defect - very senior engineers will find out
by lumost 3y ago
There is something different that happens in a vertically integrated engineering firms. In the event of a critical defect - very senior engineers will find out the specific people who caused the defect, and vet that the appropriate corrective actions have taken place. Likewise, if you do your job well on sub-assembly 529ca - you have the opportunity to be noticed and move up to bigger projects without changing firms. These records are persistent in the company, and it can be highly embarrassing and impactful to have caused the issue many years later.
When you've outsourced the supply chain, personal responsibility is washed in a sea of lawyers, managers, buyers, and other personnel - the incentive to do your job to the 80-90% of completion and no more is extremely strong as it makes everything look better over the next 2-3 years.
- WanderPanda 3y agoYou raise a very good point. If you join a company with the goal of retiring in the same company after a a 40-year career, the incentives are much better aligned than with contractors. Maybe the demise of the 40-year career in modern companies is one of the bigger elephants in the room
- lumost 3y agoI'm not sure you even need a 40 year career. In my current (Tech/Software) shop, the Distinguished Engineer (Lead engineer for a group of ~2-5k engineers). Can very quickly learn your name from your successes and failures. The highest priority projects will pull talent from these successes. In the span of 2-4 years you can go from sub-assembly 1234 to lead of (biggest project). In theory, you can pivot the entire knowledge "supply chain" to a different problem in 1-2 years in this manner. Shifting a contracted supply chain could take decades if it was even possible.