I’m a software engineering manager at an aerospace company, have been here for more than 38 years, and I love my job. It’s not exactly what I wanted to do when I was in college though. In those days I really liked art and I really liked computers, so my plan was to go into computer animation.
I graduated in 1985. For context, that was a full ten years before the first Toy Story movie, which was the first fully computer animated feature film. Most computer animation in those days was for commercials, small scenes in movies, shorts, etc. Only problem was, there had been a heavily or fully computer animated film in development, but it got cancelled my last semester, so there were suddenly a whole bunch of unemployed computer animators with actual experience.
I ended up just sending my resume to every place that was hiring programmers locally and ended up getting hired to work on the shuttle program. I’ve really enjoyed the hell out of it. That’s a nice thing about software: you can do it for pretty much every industry.
Well, shuttle ended. I’m now the senior manager of the space software organization, and one of our projects is the control software for the RS-25 engines for SLS/Artemis. That engine is actually the same one that was used on shuttle, so in a way yes. A number of my people are on that project and I do get involved, but I don’t write code anymore.
We’re have a number of cool programs, but that one sure has lasted a long time in one way or another.
Quite the path. I finally got around to seeing a launch over the last few years, and now I go see them whenever possible(FL). Truly marvelous. Thank you for sharing!
Mostly smaller SpaceX launches since they are quite plentiful!
The big launches bring massive crowds so for those it’s usually from home ( still quite visible on a clear day). Since my youth though I’ve seen the Atlantis, Columbia many times.
Hope you get to see the fruits of your work in action. It’s quite breathtaking and hard to put into words. I compare it to skydiving in that way.
I’m a software engineering manager at an aerospace company, have been here for more than 38 years, and I love my job. It’s not exactly what I wanted to do when I was in college though. In those days I really liked art and I really liked computers, so my plan was to go into computer animation.
I graduated in 1985. For context, that was a full ten years before the first Toy Story movie, which was the first fully computer animated feature film. Most computer animation in those days was for commercials, small scenes in movies, shorts, etc. Only problem was, there had been a heavily or fully computer animated film in development, but it got cancelled my last semester, so there were suddenly a whole bunch of unemployed computer animators with actual experience.
I ended up just sending my resume to every place that was hiring programmers locally and ended up getting hired to work on the shuttle program. I’ve really enjoyed the hell out of it. That’s a nice thing about software: you can do it for pretty much every industry.
That’s awesome. Are you still working on shuttle programs?
Well, shuttle ended. I’m now the senior manager of the space software organization, and one of our projects is the control software for the RS-25 engines for SLS/Artemis. That engine is actually the same one that was used on shuttle, so in a way yes. A number of my people are on that project and I do get involved, but I don’t write code anymore.
We’re have a number of cool programs, but that one sure has lasted a long time in one way or another.
Quite the path. I finally got around to seeing a launch over the last few years, and now I go see them whenever possible(FL). Truly marvelous. Thank you for sharing!
Which vehicles have you seen launch? I’ve seen some engine tests, but I’ve never seen a launch even though I’ve worked on shuttle and SLS.
Mostly smaller SpaceX launches since they are quite plentiful!
The big launches bring massive crowds so for those it’s usually from home ( still quite visible on a clear day). Since my youth though I’ve seen the Atlantis, Columbia many times.
Hope you get to see the fruits of your work in action. It’s quite breathtaking and hard to put into words. I compare it to skydiving in that way.
Are you based in FL?
Nope, California.