Job as Avionic Software Engineer
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Job as Avionic Software Engineer
I am almost finished with my Master degree in computer science and looking for a job. I have a pilot's license and have always been interested in aviation. Having specialized in embedded systems I think working as a software engineer "building" avionic would be a good fit. Has anyone here experience working as an SE in this field? How is the work different from other SE jobs? Is the payment worse/better than in other fields?
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My first job out of university was in avionics software, but that was back in the 90s. At that time, it was relatively poorly paid and mostly in ADA, but the latter, at least, has probably changed. I got a 50% pay rise when I moved on to my second job in a more commercial field.
On the plus side, we got to visit various places and poke our noses into whatever planes they had around at the time. And we got to laugh at the newly hired hardware designers when they put a transformer in the middle of a circuit board that was supposed to fly in a plane. The test guys loved putting those in their vibration rig.
On the plus side, we got to visit various places and poke our noses into whatever planes they had around at the time. And we got to laugh at the newly hired hardware designers when they put a transformer in the middle of a circuit board that was supposed to fly in a plane. The test guys loved putting those in their vibration rig.
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@NutLoose: I already looked at various job offers and graduate programs at Boeing, Honeywell, etc... I just wanted someone with experience in this field to tell me what to expect. But thanks anyway (Actually I hadn't looked at BAE).
@MG23: Thanks for sharing your experience. Would you start there again or directly take a job in a "more commercial" field? I guess productivity is less (or more cumbersome) compared to other fields because of certifications like DO-178?
@MG23: Thanks for sharing your experience. Would you start there again or directly take a job in a "more commercial" field? I guess productivity is less (or more cumbersome) compared to other fields because of certifications like DO-178?
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As I said, it was the 90s, so pay may be better today 
. At the time it seemed to be more a job you did because you found it interesting than because you wanted to make money; you could go and spend your life writing database software for a bank if you wanted to be rich. We got to work with a lot of unusual hardware -- it was the first time I ever saw something using core memory in the real world -- and help spec it with the hardware guys.
I think my biggest question would be whether the skills would transfer easily over to other fields, or you'd be restricted to avionics forever? I believe there's a lot more C++ and similar languages these days, so you should at least be able to transfer to other embedded areas. I've never had a need to use Ada since I left that job.
And yeah, hacking in a patch and shipping it straight out the door wasn't considered good practice, unlike some of my other jobs since.
. At the time it seemed to be more a job you did because you found it interesting than because you wanted to make money; you could go and spend your life writing database software for a bank if you wanted to be rich. We got to work with a lot of unusual hardware -- it was the first time I ever saw something using core memory in the real world -- and help spec it with the hardware guys.I think my biggest question would be whether the skills would transfer easily over to other fields, or you'd be restricted to avionics forever? I believe there's a lot more C++ and similar languages these days, so you should at least be able to transfer to other embedded areas. I've never had a need to use Ada since I left that job.
And yeah, hacking in a patch and shipping it straight out the door wasn't considered good practice, unlike some of my other jobs since
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While I think of it, you may well also need to be ready to be vetted, particularly if the company does any military work; when I started that job in the UK I had to get a security clearance, and the very first thing they made us do after going through the front door was to sign the Official Secrets Act.
