*I got a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT for this?
*
Looking for a job that will sometimes require long hours and work on weekends? Wanting your hard work to be publicly scrutinized by thousands of discerning and exacting individuals? Hoping part of your job will be physically demanding? Wanting to earn less than you might be able to at a large, for-profit company? Looking forward to repeatedly, and determinedly, banging your skull against a near-impossible task like designing a game for FRC?
Then have we got a job for you!*
FRC now has not one, but two job openings in our Mechanical Engineering department! We have openings for a Mechanical Engineer and a Mechanical Engineering Technician. Check out the job descriptions and requirements here.
If you are interested, and think you qualify, apply, and join us!
Frank
*I probably should have also mentioned that you get to change the world. We don’t have openings because two employees ran away screaming, but because *FIRST *Senior Management recognized we needed more investment in the FRC Mechanical Engineering department to deliver the best possible product to our customers. Just like working anywhere else, working at *FIRST *can *sometimes *be frustrating and difficult, but every day you get to come to work realizing you’re making a real difference in the lives of thousands of young people. Your challenges will be hands-on and interesting, your co-workers will become family, and your time here will be unforgettable. I joke around above, but seriously, working at *FIRST *is awesome.
If they can afford to bring in an expensive snazzy camera “that is one of only 5-6 in the country” to promote FIRST Global at the venue, they can certainly afford to make investments in the core FRC engineering staff.
Interesting thing, is that actual FIRST Districts are their own legal entities, though you might be forgetting that FIRST acts as financial passthrough for many teams. They definitely make money, but it’s not nearly as much as you think.
It is reasonably typical for a Non-Profit to finish the fiscal year with ~12 months worth of operating expenses in the bank, they appear to be at about 60% of that level, 42 Million in the bank isn’t a ton when you spend 60+ million every year.
Way to take things out of context… my post is a response to throwaway’s response to Travis. FIRST has the funds and these new hires are going to be money well spent - I agree that it’s long overdue. Nobody suggested having $0 net revenue.
Just once? Talk about Fake News…It’s after midnight, we’re in the upper 80s here on the Gulf Coast, and the chill has me reaching for my covfefe.
+1 - assets include real (buildings) and moveable (equipment) as well as liquid assets. A positive net revenue more likely means increasing real and moveable assets, though it would be great to have the liquid assets numbers handy.
That said, let me also heartily concur with everyone who has said that putting a few more MEs on staff at FIRST HQ is a bit overdue. The last two games’ fields have required significant mechanical changes during the build and competition season; proper engineering would have foreseen these excesses prior to kickoff. The FIRST MEs need to go into field design asking that basic question “WWZD?” (What will the ZebraCorns Do?). If they get even close there, redesigns should be tweaks rather than rebuilds.
My only hope-borne-of-cynicism is that more MEs does not lead to more complex fields that leads to larger registration fees, turning into some brown snowball. One of my biggest concerns with trudging forward with the split championship events is the obvious and borderline grotesque over-extension of the current FRC support staff to run 2 massive and disparate events in 2 weeks in 2 locations.
It solves that problem if the current staff doesn’t have enough time to think about which ways to dimension things and do things properly, which is the impression I’ve gotten.
