4 ms·

Why won’t the skillset be transferable to places like space x, Amazon kuiper, blue origin, or any of the big defense tech or start ups (eg anduril)?

kylecordes 1y ago
Likely so, but you have probably listed a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers So....the same challenges that everyone working in the private sector has? What am I missing here?
  - crote 1y ago
    Imagine if Google or Apple suddenly went bust. What do you think that would do to the job market in San Francisco?
    - rockskon 1y ago
      NASA is still around. The layoff announcements for contractors at certain locations have been staggered as far as I know. Still - it appears to be a tremendously hurdle for her to find alternate employment with her skillset in parts engineering without physically relocating - which would necessitate selling her house and her husband finding employment at the new region as well.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      Shit happens, what can you do about it? Do you think garbage men, teachers or doctors will care about the tough job market of SW engineers? Everyone's job and everyone's lives have challenges, nobody else will cry for you, it's still up to you to deal with whatever problems life throws at you.
      - soulofmischief 1y ago
        No. Flip it around. I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors, even if they don't value mine. All three of those jobs you listed have vested interest groups who are standing in the way of a better life for those who provide these essential services, or are artificially controlling the market. What we do about it is educate the public and form institutions that are motivated to protect these people. We failed on the former and now it's disrupting the latter. Deciding whether I should care about another group based on whether they care about my own predicament is a straight path to evil.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >No. Flip it around. I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors Great that you care? And what are you dong about it? Are you voluntarily paying more taxes to your local city/council/state?
        soulofmischief 1y ago
        What would handing money over to my government without any strings attached do? In America we ostensibly participate in a representative democracy founded on the sentiment of no taxation without representation, and so our first duty is to be politically involved by educating ourselves holistically, voting appropriately for our local, state and federal representatives, participating in accompanying community building, wealth and knowledge dissemination in order to create and maintain the institutions which I mentioned in my previous comment.
        skissane 1y ago
        > I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors, even if they don't value mine. All three of those jobs you listed have vested interest groups who are standing in the way of a better life for those who provide these essential services, or are artificially controlling the market. Do doctors really belong on that list? In my personal experience-I’m not a doctor, but lots of people in my family are, including my mother and brother (and when she finishes med school, my sister too)-I really don’t get the impression doctors are poorly paid at all. If we talk about those with established careers (so not junior doctors), the poorly paid ones are still earning twice what the average person does, and the better paid ones are off the charts. On average, medicine pays better than software engineering. Oh, and I’m in Australia-in the US, medical salaries are even better than they are in Australia. Like take what people get paid in Australia and add 50%. Yes, American doctors would owe more in student loans-but when you are on US$400K, and the average US medical school debt is under US$300K, how long is it going to take you to pay it off?
- skissane 1y ago
  I totally believe they get swamped with eager candidates, but highly experienced ones? Someone ex-NASA may well have deep experience in certain specific areas which few other candidates could claim. The thing about a voluntary "deferred resignation program" – the people most likely to take it are those who are confident they can find good opportunities somewhere else. If you didn't have that confidence, you'd be much less likely to sign on to it.
rockskon 1y ago
Considering her coworkers are calling the mass contractor layoffs "getting DOGEd", SpaceX is less than appealing. Similar sentiment is felt about any other organization run by people who are seen as having had a hand in kneecapping NASA - working for their companies is not appealing. Perhaps her views will change after she's had more time to process the sting of the layoff notice. And her prior work for the DoD left her with an extraordinarily bad impression of the culture. Admittedly she'd only worked at a single Navy Yard and different branches in different services can have different cultures, but nevertheless - the DoD is not appealing either. Depending on the results of her job search, that might change. For Amazon Kuiper - no relevant roles are available in the region and, as far as what's listed on the website, there's no jobs that allow for working remotely outside of relevant travel. Blue Origin...same issue as with Kuiper - remote work doesn't seem to be a thing and they've no local presence with relevant jobs available.
harimau777 1y ago
It could be that those companies aren't located somewhere they are willing to live or it could be that they don't want to work for companies owned by Elon or Bezos.
natebc 1y ago
These are (mostly) scientists that have been doing science for a science organization. Those companies are transportation companies when it comes to space.

kylecordes 1y ago

Likely so, but you have probably listed a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>a bunch of organizations already utterly swamped with eager and qualified job candidates relative to their hiring numbers So....the same challenges that everyone working in the private sector has? What am I missing here?
- crote 1y ago
  Imagine if Google or Apple suddenly went bust. What do you think that would do to the job market in San Francisco?
  - rockskon 1y ago
    NASA is still around. The layoff announcements for contractors at certain locations have been staggered as far as I know. Still - it appears to be a tremendously hurdle for her to find alternate employment with her skillset in parts engineering without physically relocating - which would necessitate selling her house and her husband finding employment at the new region as well.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    Shit happens, what can you do about it? Do you think garbage men, teachers or doctors will care about the tough job market of SW engineers? Everyone's job and everyone's lives have challenges, nobody else will cry for you, it's still up to you to deal with whatever problems life throws at you.
    - soulofmischief 1y ago
      No. Flip it around. I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors, even if they don't value mine. All three of those jobs you listed have vested interest groups who are standing in the way of a better life for those who provide these essential services, or are artificially controlling the market. What we do about it is educate the public and form institutions that are motivated to protect these people. We failed on the former and now it's disrupting the latter. Deciding whether I should care about another group based on whether they care about my own predicament is a straight path to evil.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >No. Flip it around. I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors Great that you care? And what are you dong about it? Are you voluntarily paying more taxes to your local city/council/state?
        soulofmischief 1y ago
        What would handing money over to my government without any strings attached do? In America we ostensibly participate in a representative democracy founded on the sentiment of no taxation without representation, and so our first duty is to be politically involved by educating ourselves holistically, voting appropriately for our local, state and federal representatives, participating in accompanying community building, wealth and knowledge dissemination in order to create and maintain the institutions which I mentioned in my previous comment.
      - skissane 1y ago
        > I care about the salaries and working condition of garbage men, teachers and doctors, even if they don't value mine. All three of those jobs you listed have vested interest groups who are standing in the way of a better life for those who provide these essential services, or are artificially controlling the market. Do doctors really belong on that list? In my personal experience-I’m not a doctor, but lots of people in my family are, including my mother and brother (and when she finishes med school, my sister too)-I really don’t get the impression doctors are poorly paid at all. If we talk about those with established careers (so not junior doctors), the poorly paid ones are still earning twice what the average person does, and the better paid ones are off the charts. On average, medicine pays better than software engineering. Oh, and I’m in Australia-in the US, medical salaries are even better than they are in Australia. Like take what people get paid in Australia and add 50%. Yes, American doctors would owe more in student loans-but when you are on US$400K, and the average US medical school debt is under US$300K, how long is it going to take you to pay it off?
skissane 1y ago
I totally believe they get swamped with eager candidates, but highly experienced ones? Someone ex-NASA may well have deep experience in certain specific areas which few other candidates could claim. The thing about a voluntary "deferred resignation program" – the people most likely to take it are those who are confident they can find good opportunities somewhere else. If you didn't have that confidence, you'd be much less likely to sign on to it.

rockskon 1y ago

Considering her coworkers are calling the mass contractor layoffs "getting DOGEd", SpaceX is less than appealing. Similar sentiment is felt about any other organization run by people who are seen as having had a hand in kneecapping NASA - working for their companies is not appealing. Perhaps her views will change after she's had more time to process the sting of the layoff notice. And her prior work for the DoD left her with an extraordinarily bad impression of the culture. Admittedly she'd only worked at a single Navy Yard and different branches in different services can have different cultures, but nevertheless - the DoD is not appealing either. Depending on the results of her job search, that might change. For Amazon Kuiper - no relevant roles are available in the region and, as far as what's listed on the website, there's no jobs that allow for working remotely outside of relevant travel. Blue Origin...same issue as with Kuiper - remote work doesn't seem to be a thing and they've no local presence with relevant jobs available.

harimau777 1y ago

It could be that those companies aren't located somewhere they are willing to live or it could be that they don't want to work for companies owned by Elon or Bezos.

natebc 1y ago

These are (mostly) scientists that have been doing science for a science organization. Those companies are transportation companies when it comes to space.