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I think the most obvious answer is that he was both heavily involved in key strategic decisions and not as technical as someone holding the Chief Engineer title
by notahacker 2y ago
I think the most obvious answer is that he was both heavily involved in key strategic decisions and not as technical as someone holding the Chief Engineer title usually would be. And is evidently less involved now, as he's doing more other stuff (SpaceX also appears very focused on "things that make a profit in near-earth space" rather than "things that might be needed for a near tern Mars mission"...)
Certainly he's more useful to organizations when he goes in with the approach of listening to engineers' ideas to build stuff than when he goes in with the approach of gutting the organization in revenge for things he's taken exception to.
- fastball 2y agoDo you think engineering managers are doing a ton of technical work day-to-day? Because a "Chief Engineer" is a level (or two or three) above that. Of course the Chief Engineer isn't doing a ton of low-level technical works, that's not the job.
- notahacker 2y agoIn a larger company a chief engineer isn't doing low level technical work, but they are normally an engineer with deep domain knowledge of the low level work being done, and not a CEO-type also responsible for other companies and the company's commercial priorities. So no, I don't think the design of Starship looks any different if he decides he's too busy to attend design meetings because of his other five jobs. Their other top level execs are very, very good engineers. SpaceX also wasn't very big in the early years, and the CTOs and chief engineers of the space launch startups I know absolutely do involve themselves in the low level technical work. I don't imagine Elon did much of that even when he did make a point of interviewing every new hire and sitting in on meetings about low level purchasing decisions.