• Question: is your job very practical ???

    Asked by nadenator to Kayleigh, Andy, Bill, Grant, Rain on 19 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by afurber.
    • Photo: Kayleigh Messer

      Kayleigh Messer answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      No my job isn’t practical at all, I work entirely on the computer. There are plenty of jobs in F1 that are practical however I’m not very good at that sort of thing!

    • Photo: Andrew Hearn

      Andrew Hearn answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      It is very practical, thankfully! 🙂

      Even though we do a tiny bit of “theorizing”, sitting there talking about what-ifs and maybes, but with software and coding, we get to test things straight away, typing up some test code and then getting it to compile, link, and run within milliseconds, then it is running the first protoypes on the embedded devices and machines.

      The least practical side of software engineering is the design stage – this is where we draw flowcharts and mock-up screenshots of what we want our new system to do, but we get some code out as early as possible, so very much a hands-on thing and using our brains at the same time!

    • Photo: Rain Irshad

      Rain Irshad answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      Hugely. I spend a lot of time putting things together – usually experiments to test parts, or instruments to make sure they work. I can also spend a fair bit of time in front of the computer modelling and programming too. Depends what stage of the mission we’re at.

    • Photo: Bill Price

      Bill Price answered on 21 Mar 2012:

      Yes it can be. Some engineers spend a lot of time on site. Even today I have a site visit to teh top of teh Shard so I will be on the 87th floor looking out over London but also Im sure someone will ask me to clarify something or comment on an issue.

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