[datadrivenangel]

"At one point, I received a well-deserved earful from our machinist about how tightly spaced the turbine blades were. The program was taking nearly a month to run and required tiny end mills that broke often. We performed a turbine blade count study to see if we could use fewer blades with more space between them. It turned out the performance impact of running fewer blades was minimal, so we cut the number down, allowing our machinist to use larger, less fragile tools. Machine time dropped to less than a day, which was a significant win for turbine cost and machine time. It was also a good lesson in thinking comprehensively about a design’s manufacturability (those passages between the blades looked so big on the computer screen!) in addition to its performance. "

Once again people learn the hard way that it's valuable to have tight feedback cycles and embedded knowledge on your team.

[FredPret]

And also the value of a completely obsessed engineer. If the mech eng designing the parts is also the type to build things in his spare time, this type of machining problem would stand out right away.

Of course, not everything can ever be anticipated, so tight feedback loops are fantastic when you can get them.

[numpad0]

I'd agree with this take more. It's just cheaper and faster to just know whys and plan ahead than waiting for failures, if you could.

I've been tinkering with 3D printers long enough that I've trivially halved print times after seeing long print time predictions. Lots of my brackets and parts fits together on first try and needs no supports. Rapid turnaround did help in _acquiring_ those skills, but now I could just waterfall little projects and tight looping is not that important.

[psunavy03]

Valuing "completely obsessed" employees is a great way to build a company with toxic burnout culture. Some people want lives outside of work and are still good at their jobs.

[quartesixte]

Or some people are so good at their jobs that even while being completely obsessed, they still have great work-life balance.

I interact with a lot of people like the author in the article from this industry. And while yes, their worklife balance skews "work", they all have interesting hobbies and find time to hang out with friends, go on adventures, and live a pretty full life.

Unless you're on the Starship team at SpaceX. Truly, hats off to y'all at Boca Chica some intense hours you are pulling there.

[nothercastle]

Employees who are married to their job are the best employees. Just like in a real relationship you can treat them like shit and they mostly stay married

[greenish_shores]

Honestly I did read that as "Employers who are married to their job are the best employers". You probably won't treat them like shit, but they'll still remain married anyway.

But such employees will sometimes leave and build their own stuff. Which they'll very likely succeed at, exactly because of the approach they have.

Ultimately, I think these are a bit different fields/markets, and a bit different kind of jobs. Engineers creating real unique new stuff, vs more "bland" engineers just being a hand to accelerate someone's efforts. I worked in both roles and can clearly see pros and cons of both. Largely depends also on life phase one's at, which one would a person prefer.

[quartesixte]

It's a lot harder to just spin-off and "build your own stuff" in hardware though, which is I think what keeps the "married employees" around longer. The startup costs are much higher and riskier. And you need a lot more people. Building that rocket engine from scratch probably required around 50 - 60 people to really get it all together.

Also, a rocket engine is a core feature of a rocket (literally cannot fly without it). If they started development of this engine in 2018, that's *six years* of work to get to their current state. Imagine spending 6 years on a core feature of an app that you'd consider "min-viable", and everytime you had a bug the computer you compiled the code on spontaneously combusted?

[avmich]

> But such employees will sometimes leave and build their own stuff. Which they'll very likely succeed at, exactly because of the approach they have.

Microsoft was known at some time to provide good environment for their engineers so they could focus on making the product, instead of learning the business side of things, which both removed distractions and reduced the incentives to leave and do things without well-learned habits.

[guynamedloren]

This may surprise you, but it's possible to be completely obsessed with your work (while you're working!), while also maintaining a work-life balance.

[psunavy03]

It's also a great excuse for abusing people.

[cwillu]

It was an explicit choice they made to have this manufactured in-house, to _enable_ that tight feedback loop.

Far from a hard lesson, it was one they designed the company around.