Getting a Job as an Aerospace Engineer

<p>I've always loved both astronomy as well as building things but aside from that, I have no real attributes or experience with the subject aerospace engineering. After some researching, I found out that in AE, not only is the job market out there rather limited but also AE majors may also have to compete with other semi-related fields like ME, CS, etc; the latter fields might actually have an advantage because they'd be more specialized(?) in certain parts of AE. </p>

<p>I initially started college as an AE major but now I'm not so sure about the path I should take. I am still 100% sure I want to do something aerospace-related. Yes, I know the difference between Astronautical and Aeronautical. My question now is, should I continue AE undergrad and then to AE grad? Or change to Mech undergrad then AE grad? If former, should I add a minor as ME or CS? I'm just more so concerned about the job prospects in the future.</p>

<p>I’m an AE major (+ astrophysics minor for fun) My experiences so far in trying to get a job with a space focused company led me to understand that if you really want to work on spacecraft the top hires are computer science, electrical and computer engineering. If you go mechanical, make sure you focus on a specific skillset, such as structures with lots of cad/fem, or propulsion with lots of simulation software experience</p>

<p>Space track AE is about the last thing companies like orbital sciences, boeing, ula or even the aerospace corporation (oh the irony) want to hire. Regardless of major, companies such as SpaceX or SNC expect you to piss excellence. </p>

<p>I have made a concerted effort over the past three months to make contact with people who either interned or are currently working at these companies. In every case so far, after a certain point merit alone did not get them recognized, luck and networking played a role in their getting the initial interview. I’ll let you know if this strategy in turn works for me.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>This is true, but the number of jobs compared to the number of aerospace engineering majors is still rather favorable, especially given the diversity of all of the other jobs that ME, EE, and CS majors pursue. It’s not like you have to compete with every single ME and EE and CS major for every one of your jobs. There are still plenty of aerospace jobs that prefer AE majors. There are also plenty that prefer ME, EE, or CS majors. It all just depends on what you want to do.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Quite the opposite is true. AE is, in general, more specialized than the other majors. In fact, it is really just a further specialization of mechanical engineering. Now, true, there are areas in the aerospace engineering that are more directly served by the education of the other majors (e.g. anything software related or avionics hardware related), but there are still AE majors doing those jobs as well, and there are plenty of other jobs in which the specializations inherent in an AE degree are an advantage, e.g. some areas of aerodynamics, weights and balances, flight dynamcis, etc.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Well first, you shouldn’t just assume you will go to graduate school without having a concrete reason to go to graduate school. There are many, many jobs out there for people with only a BS. You should only do graduate school if you think it will help your specific career goals. Then, when you have a goal in mind, choose the field of study for your graduate degree that gets you to that goal. Regarding your undergraduate degree, you can get into aerospace with either AE or ME easily, so it honestly doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.</p>

<p>There is really nothing to be gained from an ME minor assuming your school even allows such a thing. A CS minor might help you out if your goal is to be working on something like avionics software, for example, but probably isn’t going to help if your goal is to go design airframes. Minors in general are often not very helpful in a direct sense as far as getting a job goes unless they are specifically relevant to that job. Even then, you are often served just as well by taking a few electives in that area and/or gaining other experience in that area and making mention of those during the hiring process.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Oddly enough, I know a number of AE majors working in the space departments of each of these companies, and none of them were “space track”, so to speak. Several were aerodynamics, several were dynamics and controls, and several were materials. One was a combustion guy. I think, then, expanding on your point: don’t get caught up in space track versus aeronautics track when it comes to AE. Instead, focus on getting some expertise in one of the major technical areas that are common to both tracks such as those I just listed. Companies care a lot more about your specific skills and expertise than what “track” you chose.</p>

<p>AE ends up either working for the government, FFRDC, JPL, etc. Even Space x rejected one guy i know that has a PhD from Caltech because he is over 40.
So my thinking it’s limiting choices with AE major. Even if you get into Spacex, it’s not that great working conditions and Elon Musk said it won’t go IPO for some time.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s just flat out not true. Those are all options, but aerospace engineers in even larger numbers end up at Boeing/Lockheed/Northrop and other such airframers (or Cessna/Bombardier/Aerion/etc, the smaller airframers), Ford/GM/Toyota and other car manufacturers, GE/Rolls-Royce/Pratt & Whitney for gas turbines, GE/Vesta/Siemens designing wind turbines, and a host of other positions. They are certainly not limited to the places you mentioned. In fact, the vast minority go into those types of jobs you mentioned (though you could make an argument that Boeing, Northrop and Lockheed are practically FFRDCs in a sense).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>SpaceX does skew unbelievably young in terms of average employee age. The average age is like mid- or late-20s, if memory serves. This is in large part because of the grueling work schedule they observe and the fact that many older people don’t feel like putting in that kind of time or have other obligations like families. I believe for that reason they also have a relatively high turnover rate for their engineering staff and probably hesitate to hire older engineers in the first place on the fear that they will leave the company quickly. Also, SpaceX flat out does not hire PhDs anyway. They have all the PhDs they need from their days as a startup and don’t need that type of expertise for the current phase of their life, so they don’t hire them unless they have a very specific need, so I suspect that likely played into the decision of not hiring the guy you know.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Despite what I’ve said already, this is still true, just not in the ways you suggested. It is limiting in that even in other fields where an aerospace engineer has the proper expertise for a job (since it is so similar to mechanical engineering), since the degree says “aerospace”, there will always be questions about whether you will cut and run at the first sign of an actual aerospace job. Additionally, while the core science is identical to that of mechanical engineering, the examples in the teaching of the courses are heavily skewed toward the aerospace sciences, so there are a lot more non-aerospace jobs where the AE would have to do some on-the-job training to get up to speed than there are aerospace jobs where an ME would have to do similar on-the-job training, thus the reason ME is still more versatile.</p>

<p>That said, if the OP is absolutely positive he/she wants to go into the aerospace industry, there isn’t really anything to be lost by staying in aerospace engineering. That degree basically qualifies you for essentially every job in the aerospace industry where a mechanical engineer would suffice, plus a few extras.</p>

<p>Believe me I’d love to “specialize” in one of the technical areas such as controls, propulsion, navigation, etc., but most standard curricula don’t have undergrads working on that until second semester junior year or later. That makes it a tough sell for that critical summer internship relevant to the desired AE career path.</p>

<p>I just wish there was more alignment between the general undergraduate AE curriculum and industry needs, at least with regard to space related jobs. Outside projects and research can help, but only if the recruiter bothers to read that far (if they even understand).</p>

<p>@da6onet There isn’t much of an option there to introduce a lot of that stuff earlier. Students generally don’t have the proper basis until then to start building those skills in any substantial manner. You will just have to try and figure out which interests you and take electives based on that interest. The good news is that for BS-level jobs, you can fairly easily get a job doing something different than what you did in your internships. I did three internships as an undergraduate: one doing fatigue testing for an oilfield services company, one doing some very low level competitive analysis for a gas turbine company, and one doing some FEA for the same gas turbine company. I was offered a job winter of my senior year designing fluid systems in nuclear submarines because of the fact that I had any engineering work experience plus took courses to help specialize in fluid mechanics.</p>

<p>Ultimately I ended up going to graduate school anyway, but that’s not the point.</p>

<p>

You can work for those companies above, but you can also work with any engineering major, you don’t have to be AE.</p>

<p>

In the truest sense, Aerospace and Mitre are FFRDCs.</p>

<p>My experience is with Southern California. Some of the companies in post #4 may not be from around this area. If they are I’ve never seen them.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>But that isn’t relevant. The question is about AE employment in general, and these companies are some of the largest employers of AEs. Further, using your examples, FFRDCs, JPL and Aerospace Corp all hire many, many people who aren’t AEs, so how is that any different? There are no companies of which I am aware that require you to have a degree in AE. Essentially every aerospace company has at least some degree of interchangeability with MEs and AEs at the very least.</p>

<p>

You are right, but they are the only companies that I thought would hire AE strictly for AE skills. But my husband worked with a woman with PhD in Chemistry from one of these places. He said she knows jack about engineering but in the advisory mode to the military because the military didn’t know squad either.</p>

<p>

Well that is the point, but those companies that I suggest are more likely to hire AE for AE skills.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>As are all of the companies I mentioned, many of which are also located in Southern California. After all, the baseline AE skills are nearly identical to the baseline ME skills. AE skills are generally just a bit more specialized toward the aerospace industry but are ultimately built on the same foundation. Of course the more you specialize, the more of a difference potentially exists, but even then, specifically with ME and AE, the difference is not that great.</p>

<p>The best thing to do is get some research experience. DS is a sophomore EE major but he is working on AE research. at his college. Even though most students are AE they do use other majors like EE and ME for their projects. That way you can get your “foot” on the door so to speak which should help getting that first co-op or internship. Also it will help you decide if AE is really what you want to do and/or if a different major will give you more flexibility. Once you start working on a “real” projects you should be able to make an informed decision. </p>