Thanks. I was dual questioning people that likely knew the answer and lamenting my life's decisions.

I have no doubt that modern engineering students have CS know-how. It's almost a requirement for the modern world. But I was curious if there were roles for things like simulation, embedded software, etc. or even general scientists that may not fall under traditional engineering. This was mainly conditional on the website's approach to vaguity.

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jmalicki 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Simulation is largely what traditional engineers do - I mean how many classes have you taken on finite element methods, discretizing PDEs, etc.? It's not web dev.

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hellojesus 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Fair. I think this is about the extent of my training, which was as an Applied Mathematics and Econ undergrad about 15 years ago: Partial differential equations : an introduction / Walter A. Strauss > https://libcat.canterbury.ac.nz/Record/1093497/TOC

Maybe my idea of NASA was too encompassing. I figured that, apart from the engineering work, general sim would require optimizations and productionalization similar to how we have AI Engineers focused on the practical implementation of ML systems apart from the core model R&D.

I got a bit hooked on Econ for awhile which held my attention through an MS, which is when I learned about computers and then applied that into DS and development.

Most of my simulation experience is in stochastic systems and modern digital twins where agents sometimes have asymmetric information. I can see how I'm of no practical use to NASA now, but it still stings. What a bummer existing and not doing anything cool with life. A warning to youth!

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FarmerPotato 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Were you in an Econ program that required tons of Matlab, SAS, R?

	▲	hellojesus 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not in undergrad (a single upper division class), but yes in grad school. I did a lot of applied mathematics in undergrad and only took the min required upper division probability/stats class. I didn't find it interesting at the time. But when I got to Econ grad school there was a massive focus on econometrics, and I learned it from first principals. For languages: SAS in undergrad econ/Matlab for math classes, STATA primarily in grad school, and I pivoted to R and then python when I hit industry.

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alephnerd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think you are underestimating your ability to contribute and also putting NASA on too much of a pedestal.

I'd argue your background is extremely valuable, but not easily traversible to NASA at the moment.

If you are deeply interested in the space, working with the newer startups in geospatial/hyperspectral imaging (be it climate or defense usecases) or CV space.

In a lot of cases, NASA is basically just acting as a coordinator between multiple vendors who are doing "the cool stuff" with less bureaucratic minutiae and stress from what's going on in DC.

Lots of interesting players in the ClimateTech and DefenseTech space who would like your background, and indirectly or directly they all work with NASA anyhow.

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hellojesus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Thanks. I did find a space jobs site last week, and some jobs looked like they aligned closely. That's probably why I was surprised the nasa reqs weren't as broad.

I wasn't really looking for a change; I have 1 and 3 year olds and am fully remote, and the flexibility with sicknesses is really a benefit. I think it was mostly a shock to my system that I may never do anything "cool" with my life.

	▲	jmalicki an hour ago \| parent [-]
		One way of viewing this is that to a moderate degree, NASA has largely been outsourced to SpaceX.

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alephnerd 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> simulation

That's largely a Mechanical Engineering, Applied Math, and Applied Physics subfield now, not computer science. Most CS majors don't even know what an IVP is, let alone PDEs, nonlinear simulation, etc.

Most CS programs no longer require numerical methods and analysis classes which are critical for this as well as other adjacent subfields like AI/ML theory.

> embedded software

That's a computer engineering and MechE subfield now. Most CS programs don't require OS classes anymore let alone embedded programming.

> even general scientists that may not fall under traditional engineering

The job posting on USAJobs is clear. And most people who are serious about working in the space also know how federal hiring works.

	▲	SauntSolaire 34 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> embedded software > That's a computer engineering and MechE subfield now. Do you mean EE subfield? I don't know many ME's working on embedded software.