Alien54's Journal: A Good Aerodynamicist is Hard to Find

I recently came across this interesting predicament:

Jerry, XCOR needs an aerodynamicist. I have refrained from sending out this "help me Obi-wan" message for over a year, but we are getting desperate. No, that's not accurate. We are beyond desperate and into seriously frantic. We must have someone with trans-sonic and supersonic experience.

One would like to think that such exists in America, but so far I have no evidence to support the assumption. We do have resumes from people who are qualified, but none is a U.S. citizen, or holds a "Green Card." We can't hire foreigners. The U.S. State Department says what we do comes under ITAR, so we cannot hire qualified non-citizen engineers, neither can we sell our products to anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or entity. I just this morning had to turn down a job from a Brit who wants to set a world record with one of our engines. That is several million dollars in revenue that will now not come to the U.S.

But that's beside the point at this moment. XCOR needs to find someone who has some experience with trans-sonic and supersonic design. I have written to and called many schools, colleges and universities. Crickets chirping. With a single exception, the University of Maryland, not one professor or teacher or college or university has returned a query. I understand that they graduate students, but apparently helping them find jobs is beyond the academic ken.

For the past year I have placed ads everywhere: Av Week, ASME, SAE, all the alphabet organizations and associations remotely connected with aerodynamics. The result: resumes for everything _but_ an aerodynamicist. I have engaged three head hunters, several job shops and other professional recruiting organizations. The score so far: 0.

XCOR is a private space company located in Mojave. They make and fly rocket planes, and are planning a number of vehicles and engines; the goal is an economic means for going to space. They're all infected with the dream out there. As someone said: "If I were an aerodynamicist interested in going to space, I'd be living in Mojave right now"

I was an aerodynamicist

[jguthrie]

I was an aerodynamicist. My graduate school research was in shock-boundary layer interaction. Unfortunately, when I got out in 1989 I couldn't buy a job. I wound up programming computers, which is still what I do.

Re:

[smellsofbikes]

I've worked with half a dozen people with bachelor or advanced degrees in AE. They were all programmers, technicians, or doing laser research, because there were no jobs in aero.

This company is doing exactly the same thing that Microsoft and many other tech companies are doing: complaining that they want a person with one specific skillset and matching experience. But they don't have the H1B backdoor. Guess what? sometimes you have to hire someone who isn't a perfect fit to your exotic requirements, and

Re:

[rtyhurst]

No, and science funding isn't what it used to be either.

NASA, universities, leading edge companies that aren't yet pumping out a widely used product all hear "crickets chirping" (nice image, I'm stealing it) when they ask for 70's (or even '80's) level funding for research.

Think that's got anything to do with it being tough to find an aerodynamicist?

Oh, wait, didn't one just say that?

My source for this arcane knowledge: any issue of Scientific American...