enderfusion

You realize SpaceX is the world's largest Labview application? Their entire launch infrastructure is built on it. Needless to say, they've got the skills to do automation in C++, but why would you for cycling control valves or creating PID control loops? Take advantage of the off-the-shelf hardware when possible. That's the difference between government and private companies.

I had a lot of sushi/sake with some labview programmers. They were cool guys that worked a ton. I remember they came in around 11am and worked till 2-3am most nights.

So many toppings.

I would say it's a two part approach. They ultimately want people that can work as independently as possible. Often times you yourself "own" a piece of flight hardware. It is your baby to design and optimize, there is less working in large groups (inefficient). Learning a wide array of engineering skills is simply to have a lot of tools in your belt. One of the things that was particularly valued was my in depth knowledge of what could be obtained off the shelf from suppliers like Mcmaster. It was a git-er-done culture. What good is the elegant design that takes 10 days from the machine shop if the test jig could be assembled from Mcmaster parts that could be there by end of day. More technical skills to have in your tool belt are things that were taught in engineering classes, but perhaps were glossed over. The world is mostly bending and shear stresses!!! Know how to free body diagram, the importance of moment of intertie, and the tradeoffs between stiffness and strength. Know your ANSI Y15.4 drafting standard, know how to dimension a machine print or weldment. Know how to use Ansys FEA and how to back up your assumptions with hand calculations.

The combination of the “hard” and “soft” skills are simply tools that can be learned with time. It helps to have them and anyone can learn them given the time. That’s the 1st component. The 2nd is the ability to problem solve and execute. This is really the key. Understand intimately the tradeoffs between good, fast, and cheap. Practice breaking a problem down to its functional and performance requirements. It’s being able to self-manage yourself in the environment of an open ended design problem. Use the 90/10 rule, it’s not worth perfecting the last 10% if it comes at an exponential cost. Understand the fundamentals so you can confidently execute a design decision with little risk.

Yup. Slack members of the team were weeded out pretty fast. They did fire some interns :-o It's definitely a young person's game with the amount of hours they ask form.