I worked at Raytheon for almost 2 years, right out of college.
I worked in R&D, which sounds cool, but essentially means that you’re project’s budget is at the whim of the highest-level executives, who are utterly out of touch with the engineers (looking at the org chart, they’re literally 7-8 levels above me).
Because of that, EVERY single project that I was on was cancelled, due to budgetary reasons. The executives would get really excited about something new, and reallocate funds to new projects.
Nothing ever got done. I saw zero projects get shipped. I never saw a customer - because there’s is no customer. There’s not even a government contract. It’s internal R&D.
That's R&D in any industry. The question you're answering is not directly "how can we address what the customer needs today" but instead "what does basic science allow us to make within the purview of our company?"
I worked in R&D, which sounds cool, but essentially means that you’re project’s budget is at the whim of the highest-level executives, who are utterly out of touch with the engineers (looking at the org chart, they’re literally 7-8 levels above me).
Because of that, EVERY single project that I was on was cancelled, due to budgetary reasons. The executives would get really excited about something new, and reallocate funds to new projects.
Nothing ever got done. I saw zero projects get shipped. I never saw a customer - because there’s is no customer. There’s not even a government contract. It’s internal R&D.