• Question: Is it common for engineers to spend so long one one project?

    Asked by away130cup to Abbie on 20 Jan 2020.
    • Photo: Abbie Hutty

      Abbie Hutty answered on 20 Jan 2020:

      No, this is very unusual. In fact I had three different jobs on the rover, so it is only because I wanted to stay working on the rover that I worked on it for so long, otherwise I would have just finished the first of those roles, which was about 3 years, before moving on to a different project.

      It totally depends what field of engineering you go into. Some people will work on a single project for a few of years, or have two or three going on each of which last a year or so, or some people work on a much shorter things which are only a few weeks or months long each.

Comments

  • Photo: Craig

    Craig commented on :

    It all depends on the project and what you’d like to work on. I’ve worked on projects for several years at a time because I help plan the science and engineering, and then I stay to do the science. I worked with an engineer who was very good but he left a few days after we landed on Mars. To me, that was very weird — we just got there! But for him, he worked on the hardware that allowed us to land successfully, so then he was ready to go do something else. There are many different kinds of interesting work and you can sometimes have the luxury staying or going.