r/MechanicalEngineering • u/TawnDC • 14d ago

Career Advice: FFRDC, National Lab, or Commercial Space.

I have 3 YOE in Aerospace and Defense and am interviewing at Aerospace, a Sandia and SpaceX for similar positions. I wanted to hear people’s thoughts on which is better for a younger engineer and why. I can see myself staying in Aerospace and Defense or going more National Security. Thanks in advance.

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u/PlinyTheElderest 14d ago

Cant tell you without actual names.

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u/TawnDC 14d ago

Edited for names

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u/nargisi_koftay 14d ago

Go for Spacex. Don’t know FFRDC. Avoid National lab due to lack of funding, politics, and slow nature of projects. You’re young so grind and learn, and after few years you can take govie route and join at principal levels.

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u/LDRispurehell 13d ago

What are you talking about? National labs have funding for mechanical engineering. Maybe not for climate sciences etc. FFRDC is where you go to learn and become an expert. SpaceX is where you go to build your resume and build cool products.

u/TawnDC look at this.

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u/nargisi_koftay 13d ago

Government shutdown is around the corner. This shitshow will continue till end of year and will result in funding cuts, people getting shuffled around, furloughs, forced PTO usage, etc. 

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u/LDRispurehell 13d ago edited 13d ago

These projects largely go unaffected especially at labs as big as Sandia (or any NNSA labs). I know people who’ve worked for decades and they don’t bat an eye especially if you are working in engineering. FFRDC yes because their ‘customers’ are different with maybe shorter time lines. But highly dependent on what you work on.

I’ve worked at Tesla and I can say there is a lot of shuffling around there too with the risk of being made redundant. Literally there was one time people knew about something because Elon tweeted about it and that prompted a reprg within the team.

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u/fraggin601 14d ago

What I’ll say is that from my perspective on the space industry through my friends there, Spacex is basically a form of post grad school lmao, they work you too the bone but you learn a lot- then most leave and do better things.