[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-11-2024).]

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-11-2024).]

quote Originally posted by olejoedad: Serious question rinse. Were you exposed to college level and above scientific training? Did your employment demand critical thinking involving scientific principles? Did your employment require innovative thinking to solve ongoing technical issues that affected profitably, safety and and regulatory mandates?

Yes, yes, and yes. Or perhaps I should say "y³ where y=yes."

I designed and created customized or "one-off" software applications for the aerospace and defense industry. I started my career by scripting computer code, mostly in FORTRAN (or Fortran.) Sometimes I created small, stand-alone computer programs. Sometimes I worked on parts of much larger computer programs that were the product of large teams of "coders." Often I was assigned the task of changing the code to fix a "bug" or accommodate a user request. I was titularized as a Software Developer or Software Engineer.

As the years went by and I moved voluntarily from one employer to another, my responsibilities shifted. Mostly, I developed software test procedures and executed the test procedures, having been retitularized as a Software Test and Quality Assurance Engineer.

In the last part of my career, I was an hourly contractor, whereas before, I had been a direct, salaried employee. My last "gig" was focused on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense or THAAD missile system. I was an integrated systems test technician, executing test procedures that were mostly already given to me as scripts, although sometimes I modified the test procedures.

I was a "software facing" technician. The testing could involve using oscilloscopes and voltmeters and the like as test instruments—electronic systems testing—but that wasn't my thing. Although previously in my career, I had gained a small familiarity with radio signal test generators and test equipment... a different and smaller project, at another and smaller company.

I remember standing or being seated in front of a video terminal and using a keyboard to type in data, and then archiving the output as "files" of data, which I might examine myself. Sometimes I was a "dummy" THAAD system operator, doing what an actual THAAD crew member would be doing in a combat scenario to set up a missile launch.

Some of the testing took place inside a large SCIF or Secure Compartmented Information Facility which was large enough to contain, within an air-conditioned and roofed facility, an actual THAAD missile launch system. There was the large, desert "camo" or uniformly olive green painted truck that transported and launched the missiles, and at least one THAAD missile in a text fixture, next to the truck.

Before becoming an hourly contractor, I worked for four modestly sized companies and finally, the one very large corporation. I never worked directly for the government.

Reducing human greenhouse gas emissions... always a good decision!

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 01-12-2024).]