My ideal job

This time three years ago, I had a job lined up for when I left college and started living in the real world, but I was in the typical 20-something quandary: I had essentially no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be done with school because my education, though pricey, hadn’t prepared me to tackle real engineering problems. But I didn’t want to stay in school because I didn’t know what I wanted to study.

Thus, the job hunt began. I was lucky to be job hunting during a brief time when the government agency that I had always dreamed of working for was hiring. I applied, had a couple interviews, and poof! I had an offer. The deadline to accept or decline was December 1st - way before I had a chance to do any other interviewing.

I had no idea what to do. Here it was, what I thought was my dream job offer, but it somehow felt like a cop-out if I didn't at least see what else was out there. Somehow it was too easy. Everyone I talked to said, “Ooh, tough call!” but didn't offer any real advice when I asked. Thankfully, my academic advisor took on the role of high school guidance counselor for me when no one else would.

So I took the job. I figured I could at least get some experience and beef up the ol’ résumé while I was figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.

Unfortunately, the job didn’t pan out like I had hoped. A lot of that was my fault, but I did manage to learn a few things from it. I at least had a longer list of what I liked and what I didn’t like, both in terms of work and in terms of a company to work for. A year later, I received my acceptance letter to grad school, and over the past year and a half I’ve come even closer to really nailing what kind of work I want to do.

The type of work, I think, is more than half the “describe your ideal job” battle. An engineering degree, it seems, can get you a job just about anywhere. An aerospace engineering degree only limits the field by a little. Some of the topics we studied in school were materials & structures, kinematics & dynamics, fluid dynamics and aerodynamics, thermodynamics, and controls. I knew what I didn’t like (materials) what I kinda liked (aerodynamics), and what I just didn’t get (controls). It wasn’t until I took a propulsion class during my senior year that I learned even a little about astrodynamics (how planets and other things in space move around due to gravity) and thought - hey, this is pretty cool!

The job I took with the government mainly involved spacecraft trajectories - how a hunk of metal wants to move in the atmosphere or in space and how to steer it to follow the path that you want instead. That stuff was pretty neat too. I knew about that kind of work as an intern, but I was never able to land a job actually doing it until I took the government job.

In grad school, much of my classwork has focused on guidance, navigation, and control. Here I finally saw that there was a reason that anyone bothered to understand control theory. I’m still not a huge controls fan, but it’s a necessary evil on the way to doing cooler things, like guidance algorithm development and trajectory design.

Okay, so I’ve gotten a little off-topic. My original point was to whine about how I can’t figure out what job to take! Now that I mostly have the “what kind of work I want to do” figured out, all that’s left are those other “minor” details to figure out - what about all the other stuff besides the work?

I haven’t gotten very far in making a job decision by making a pro/con list for the two companies that have made me offers, so I’m trying to approach it from the other end - what is my ideal job at my ideal company?

I want to have a job where...

• I look forward to going to work every day
• The actual work is interesting to me
• The work, and the company’s mission, is useful - the work benefits others, and has a clear purpose
• I get along well with my co-workers and my boss; the atmosphere is friendly and helpful/supportive
• The hours are reasonable - the job doesn’t take over my life
• The company is respectful of work/life balance
  
• The work is technical, but it involves more than just me sitting in front of a computer all day (I’m already doing this for my thesis and it sucks)
• There’s a good mix of working with people and solving problems on my own
• There’s a variety of work, and the company is willing to accommodate me when my interests change and I want to try something new
• My co-workers are motivated to get things done
  
• The company’s goal is to deliver work that is thorough and correct, not just on-time
• There’s a good mix of young people and older, more experienced engineers
• The company encourages me to expand my horizons and further my education - not necessarily toward a degree, but at least job-related training. Bonus if they have a very broad definition of what’s job-related. :)
  
• It pays enough to cover my expenses, plus some extra to help me save for fun stuff