senior system engineer

senior mechanical engineer

senior software engineer

principal software engineer

mechanical engineer

Sierra Space

While the work itself at Sierra Space was enjoyable and challenging to a seasoned engineer like myself, the poor upper management (extending all the way to the senior executive team) made the job very stressful and forced you to watch your back constantly.   I felt unable to speak freely about design, quality,  and operational issues concerning the spacecraft, which based on my experience was what I was hired to do in the first place.

The day of completion for the first spacecraft came with a huge company-wide celebration full of smiling, happy employees - we had finally DONE it!

The VERY NEXT DAY, pink slips were issued without notice for what eventually became 300 employees.   That was nearly one-third of the Louisville work force!  And this was right before Thanksgiving and the start of the holidays, too.   

I was a contractor and had weathered things like this before, but many of the younger employees had signed-on believing from what they had been told that they would be working for years and years.  Therefore they had bought cars, houses, etc., and as a result were absolutely devasted at their unexpected layoff.  

Caring, professional companies don't do their employees dirty like this.   I'm talking about smart, capable engineers and technicians who were an incredible asset to acheiving the company's goals, yet were unceremoniously dumped -literally the day after they weren't needed anymore.     

I expected to land a “dream job” when I accepted my job offer, I got everything but a dream job. Severe lack of training that defeats you before you get on the production floor. Non-inclusive environment. If you aren’t one of your managers “favorite people”, you will receive little to no support at all. By the time I decided to leave, I felt like I was clocking into prison on work release, rather than enjoying a feeling of doing something grand and amazing (come on, building a spaceship should feel like an amazing accomplishment that fills you with joy). The company is ran like a start up, not a business that’s been in operation for over 30 years. There’s absolutely no direction or trajectory to measure your career with at the company. I had supervisors and managers that were lower level than I started at, for the fact that they will make you take a pay and title cut to go full time. No semblance of career advancement. It could’ve been a great place to work, if anyone knew what they were doing, instead of winging it. Why! Would you take a tech off a job he’s worked on for week(s) and throw him on a PPN that he knows nothing about and slap someone else on the work order the person has been working on for an extended period of time? That’s why there’s so many non-conformance's in the build process. I wish them the best, but I lost faith in the cause well before I decided to move on, sad.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Worked for parent company prior to accepting position.  Familiar with technologies and application platforms.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Top down management ignores concerns of workers needs, no personnel development.  Do what you’re told or leave the company.  Poor communication from management as executives are always double booked.  

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Employees are not empowered and managers lack time for feedback.  Frustrated co-workers throwing partners under the bus.  Difficult to find time for one on one with managers because of workloads.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Reactively working through problems all day long.  Co-workers have no incentive to support stakeholders to resolve problems.  Management disjointed and not receptive to ideas, lack understanding of priorities and importance.  Wasted shareholder money implementing ill thought solutions for problems.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The technicians and fellow staff members are the best part of working at Sierra Space. They are the glue that holds things together and makes being part of the team worth the effort (and mandatory overtime).

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Poor planning, poor scheduling, poor communication, mandatory overtime, and the massive absence of good leadership all make working at Sierra Space extremely stressful. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The environment is toxic and poorly managed. Rewards do not outweigh the stress or difficulties of working at Sierra Space.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Arrive early for staff meetings, desperately try to balance time between developing work and supporting production work while priorities shift each hour, stay late to coordinate with the following shift for passdowns, and repeat.

It looks like a great job at first I started with no experience and they new it and still decided to hire me. I worked there for a few months my coworkers felt like family and we joked and got along great. It was okay pay and great benefits. The bad things ton of drama management is out to get you they hate anyone who doesn't kiss their buts. No work life balance if you want to stay. And they lie all the time they fired me for workman ship issues I had zero ncs to my name and no written warnings. The real reason I got fired Is because I didn't put up with management's style of blaming everyone but themselves. The project is a disaster and so behind I highly doubt they will ever get it up in the air or if they do that it will even make it back down they have over 10,000 ncs on that thing. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
A handful of great co workers 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Poor planning, little communication and transparency, favoritism 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
I felt that I was ‘walking on eggshells’, I felt micromanaged, quite toxic towards the end. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Scheduling executive level interviews as well as others across the company, making reference guides for peers. Escorting candidates

What is the best part of working at the company?
Teammates were hard-working, passionate, and supportive

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Constant layoffs of key personnel. There was no rhyme or reason as to what departments would experience layoffs of employees. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Toxic management that gave little guidance but had big expectations. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
The expectation was that you would start work early and work late. 50 hour work weeks were the minimum expected.

This place is a joke that will never meet its expectations. They just keep recycling in new low and mid level management, when it is the upper VP level management that is failing the company. I hated my time working here, especially knowing they will not reach their goals and look for the "little" people to blame. They hire Director level management without having a college degree. They bypass quality and safety in an effort to stop the many schedule delays. There is not the right talent or upper management to complete their mission. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The pay is okay, the projects are cool

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Never having enough to do, wondering why you’re getting paid so much just to stand around

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Ex military members are welcome, if you aren’t ex military, better just to act like you’re not there 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Walk into work, do a project that takes 2-3 hours, go to lunch, come back and ask for more work, there is no more work, just try to look busy

Managment is petty and inexperienced.  Continuous string of people who are focused on all the wrong things to move a company forward.  Always trying not to be the target for sacrifice. Good people come and go quickly.  Was hired to learn and grow in a particular job focus and quickly re-tooled to do what I did not want to do.  Management did not listen to my years of experience.  IT acceptible use policy is out of date and used as a tool to remove non-sicophants.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Senior system engineer 27 salaries reported	$143,943 per year
Senior mechanical engineer 13 salaries reported	$119,086 per year
Senior software engineer 20 salaries reported	$154,672 per year
Principal software engineer 14 salaries reported	$209,800 per year
Mechanical engineer 4 salaries reported	$164,796 per year

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