Edward spoke with us about his experiences, his work, and how he ended up at NASA.
Tell us about your current position, and how long youve been at it.
What drove you to choose your career path?
Music recording became more of a hobby, and I ended up minoring in Philosophy instead.
I eventually wanted to try something different and outside of the corporate world.
To me, space exploration has always been one of the most beautiful expressions of human ambition.
How did you go about getting your job?
What kind of education and experience did you need?
I found the listing for an EMC engineer and applied through JPLs career page.
For many specialized positions, a PhD can be required (especially for science positions).
What kinds of things do you do beyond what most people see?
What do you actually spend the majority of your time doing?
What misconceptions do people often have about your job?
Even when I work in lab, its almost always with a diverse group of engineers.
It takes a collaborative effort to build and test a spacecraft successfully, on-schedule, and on-budget.
On that note, another misconception is that were all like characters in The Big Bang Theory.
Hey youre pretty normal and not like the guys in Big Bang Theory!
What are your average work hours?
My schedule is flexible, but Ive settled on being in the office from 8am to 5:30/6pm most days.
What personal tips and shortcuts have made your job easier?
For quick requests and clarifications, a call is usually better than email.
Not that I dont like chatting, but sometimes you just need to get things done!
Also, a little written planning goes a long way.
What do you do differently from your coworkers or peers in the same profession?
What do they do instead?
Whats the worst part of the job and how do you deal with it?
Ive noticed a bit more bureaucracy here than at my previous job.
On balance, its a pretty good trade-off.
Whats the most enjoyable part of the job?
No two days are alike.
The people here are amazing.
What kind of money can one expect to make at your job?
It can be more if you hop between jobs or work somewhere like Silicon Valley.
How do you move up in your field?
In general there are at least two paths: management or technical expertise.
Engineers and scientists hold the majority of management roles here.
Having just started I cant speak specifically as to how they get there.
That said, if you really enjoy doing detailed engineering work, thats a viable career path as well.
My mentor at JPL stayed in the same line of work for 52 years (!!!)
until he retired this year.
He worked on everything from the Voyagers to the soon-to-be-launchedInSight lander.
What do people under/over value about what you do?
If we do our job right, the spacecraft will work exactly as planned.
What advice would you give to those aspiring to join your profession?
I believe many more people are capable of pursuing STEM fields than they realize.
If youd like to share your career, email us at[email protected].Photo byNASA.
