Creating a commercial space effort is clearly not a 9-to-5 job: Software engineers from Blue Origin, the space venture that Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos created, reinforced that view today during an “Ask Me Anything” chat session on Reddit.
The issue came up just days after a human-resources executive from SpaceX, one of Blue Origin’s rivals in the commercial space industry, went through a Reddit AMA session and addressed the “myth” that his company’s engineers routinely work 80 hours a week.
“How many hours do you guys work?” the Blue Origin group was asked today.
“When you are passionate about what you do, time becomes relative,” they answered. (The group’s responses were not attributed to individual engineers.)
The questioner, who self-identified as a British teenager, wanted to hear more: “Dammit, a non-answer for that one. … ” But sometimes that’s the way it goes on Reddit.
Blue Origin’s team is hard at work at the company’s headquarters in Kent, Wash., developing a suborbital launch system capable of sending passengers and payloads beyond the 62-mile (100-kilometer) boundary line of outer space – as well as an orbital launch system capable of reaching the International Space Station.
The suborbital New Shepard spaceship has gone through four successful launch and landing tests already, and another uncrewed test flight is expected as early as this month. Test astronauts could start riding New Shepard as early as next year, and paying passengers could come on board by 2018.
Nowadays, spaceflight is as much of a software challenge as a hardware challenge, and that’s a big reason why the Seattle area has been gaining prominence in the space industry. The software side was obviously the focus during today’s AMA. Here are a few edited nuggets from the Reddit Q&A:
How do you become a software engineer for a space company? “I for one never expected to work in the space industry or Blue. I was previously working at Amazon and heard a lot of mentions of Blue. I thought since I didn’t have a big mechanical/electrical engineering background I wouldn’t be able to find a job in the field. I saw that Blue had software opening that matched my background (CS degree) and applied and got on a great team building applications and tools that drive the business of building rockets. The interview for Blue is different from any other I have been to before, as the first hour is you giving a presentation on yourself, job history and projects. So don’t let your dreams be dreams! Just DO IT!”
What is Blue Origin doing to manage its rapid growth? “It’s top of mind company-wide and we’re constantly on the lookout for signs of scaling pain and ways we can do better. A key part to the scaling is specialization. For example, people are increasingly working on either existing New Shepard operations, the next increments of New Shepard, BE-4, the orbital program, or common tools/frameworks but not all of them simultaneously. We’re setting up appropriate leadership and communication structures, creating strong ownership of individual areas, constantly iterating on our onboarding processes, and improving documentation and training. There’s no way to grow quickly without discomfort, but I think we’re actually doing pretty well.”
What is your opinion on what SpaceX has achieved so far? “More the merrier! When there is success anywhere in the industry, especially as young as the private space industry, it helps everyone. I hope the increase of private companies related to space encourages more young kids to get inspired and dream of living and working in space.”
How do you debug code for rocket hardware? “We can run the code, simulation, and a lot of the tests on a desktop, which is both faster and safer than real hardware. And then we can run on real hardware before we connect hazardous actuators. But at some point you’ve got to control a real actuator for the first time. At that point you don’t plan to be actively debugging: You start logging everything, add safety glass or blast mats, and then step away. Far away.”
Will you be live-streaming views of Blue Origin’s launches from the rocket’s point of view? And are you working on software for the orbital launch vehicle, known as Very Big Brother? “We will definitely have streams like the ones we’ve had so far. We are looking into live streaming from the rocket itself. Yes, Very Big Brother is being worked on.”
Do you ever make dad jokes about how “it’s not rocket science”? “Yes, but what I constantly struggle with is, what do I compare hard tasks to now? It’s not brain surgery? I am pretty sure we have someone in Blue that is qualified to do both brain surgery and rocket science. If not now, then eventually, and we’ll have to ask this question all over again.”
If I want to work at Blue Origin, how many resumes can I send in before I’m told to stop? “The best way to find out is to start sending resumes to Blue. :) https://www.blueorigin.com/careers.”
