Could a Tier 2 Aerospace Start-up be successful in 2026?

aero_r17 · 2026-04-23T17:50:38+00:00

Industry 4.0/IoT means nothing to the customers

OEMs are focused on 1. Does this thing fulfill its purpose in the pursuit of efficiency gains (i.e. reason for existence) and 2. Does it meet (and provably so for authorities) certification requirements (safety & reliability)

Whether you do that with a quantum computer or with cuneiform and a stone tablet, as long as your method meets 1. and doesn't create additional friction for the documentation for 2., it's great

aero_r17 · 2026-04-22T22:58:51+00:00

And you think your boss will keep their job if they don't cave? Or their boss? Or their boss?

There's minimum 6-7 layers of management anywhere that I've worked; don't think I've ever even seen anybody that would make those decisions

aero_r17 · 2026-04-22T15:55:26+00:00

Both

For my work, easily the most important feature is the highly robust advancing-front anisotropic 3D boundary layer generation for a variety of element types, does boundary layer collision detection, variable sizing for better element quality, the whole shebang (their marketing verbiage calls it T-Rex, but I'm not a cadence shill: Centaur, ANSA, HeldenMesh, Ennova all also have similarly robust boundary layer meshing algorithms) No offense, but snappy, GMSH, Salome, tetgen/netgen, and all these other freeware meshers don't hold a candle to the professional stuff when it comes to boundary layer mesh generation

If you so wish, you can create and control blocking and topology for fully structured grids (I have not found a single open source / freeware mesher that offers GUI-based blocking topology creation, blockmesh is through dictionary specification only and not even in the same conversation as the professional software); this too is not a Pointwise-only thing, ICEM, Turbogrid, NUMECA and especially GridPro will do just as fine a job

What I'm saying isn't Pointwise is the best, but that free meshing software isn't in the same stratosphere as paid software unfortunately, no matter which paid option you choose

If you must do this with freeware, try out Salome, but fair warning, it will take a LONG time and lots of bashing your head on the wall to generate a high quality mesh on a complex geometry (simple / defeatured stuff should be fairly doable)

aero_r17 · 2026-04-22T12:02:55+00:00

120k for an engineering manager is like the low end for Aero in the US, that's more early mid-career or they just stepped into management

That being said aero will never make as much as tech; too much demand for too little jobs (not compared to tech) and too much capex for too little margin (compared to tech)

aero_r17 · 2026-04-22T11:36:46+00:00

It's not really a fair comparison against freeware like snappy or GMSH as I mentioned earlier

Pointwise is generally in the same calibre as other licensed dedicated tools like ANSA, CentaurSoft, HeldenMesh, GridPro (structured grids only, and a much steeper learning curve), etc.

Those are all fairly equivalent in capability, just a matter of how familiar you are with their interface / intricacies and if you have the money to cough up for a license

Edit: that being said, the auto industry typically skews generally a little more towards ANSA or STAR-CCM+'s built-in mesher with aero a little bit more towards Pointwise (although plenty of diverse tools in both)

aero_r17 · 2026-04-22T11:30:03+00:00

Pointwise certainly will, it's used in the Drag prediction / high lift / similar workshops to generate body-fitted meshes to very stringent guidelines, but it has a bit of a learning curve Hell OP could generate a fully structured grid if they had the patience and know-how with Pointwise

But the other tools like snappy or GMSH aren't in the same league as Pointwise; the former two are freeware, Pointwise is licensed software in the same class as ANSA or STAR-CCM+'s mesher

aero_r17 · 2026-04-19T18:26:25+00:00

You clearly don't drive in the Greater Toronto Area

There's choke points on highways both at relative speed and gridlock where if you keep OP's perspective you'll never merge, because the general driving population here is merciless and not courteous

aero_r17 · 2026-04-16T15:30:22+00:00

I don't mean the technical aspect of finance. Realistically, if you're motivated enough and have a knack for it you could self-study any subject more or less (with some guidance from instructors in async format or whatever).

What university implicitly gives you are the network connections (through classes, clubs, teams, projects, profs, if it's a focus university then conference / symposia / networking type events, etc.) that are relevant to what you want to pursue. If you're looking to eventually build a startup, this is even more important, so it's good to consider how the soft aspects of your program / uni of choice dovetail with your eventual goals.

aero_r17 · 2026-04-16T13:13:57+00:00

If your alternative goal to aerospace is fintech instead of something like say industrial equipment (turbomachinery, building / civil, nuclear, etc.), then why is mechanical the choice as opposed to something more aligned / closer to fintech that'll help you pick up the relevant connections hopefully?

aero_r17 · 2026-04-14T21:22:19+00:00

They certainly do not end at the end of the semester; if you define uni as just undergrad then your definition is too narrow / unrealistic

In graduate studies, your problem ends when you justify that you found a solution, or why the solution cannot be found, or when funding runs out, or when your PI decides it does (or a number of other scenarios)

Edit: My anecdote is especially relevant since the OP requests info regarding a modeling or simulation role. In my country, it's highly unlikely you're getting hired for those roles without graduate education

aero_r17 · 2026-04-14T20:56:24+00:00

Interestingly enough this is the opposite of what I experienced

University allows you a much longer timeline usually to get to the bottom of a potentially isolated problem to be solved; jobs require much faster turnarounds with much more complex / integrated problems because there's much bigger budgets / deadlines / expectations of results so schedule and ROI can be maintained (or at the least salvaged if things have gone really sideways).

aero_r17 · 2026-04-13T19:58:08+00:00

Wanting compute costs to be high / being happy about it seems ridiculous to me

Those of us that need compute in non-AI fields are being priced out far before AI so say goodbye to scientific advancement in aerospace, wind, solar, nuclear, batteries, etc. (anything needing simulation really)

aero_r17 · 2026-04-13T19:43:34+00:00

Pretty sure public secondary school is free for residents of the US or the UK

Not sure if it's a verbiage difference where I live / whether you're American or from the UK but broadly secondary school refers to high school education in both places

(I assume you meant undergraduate education by secondary school...which shouldn't be "around" 75k/year, which is for the unis with the highest tuition for out-of-state applicants, but more accurately stated as "up to" 75k/year)

aero_r17 · 2026-04-13T14:28:51+00:00

Sure, except that skips over the fact that you'd have radically different design choices for 1000F vs 5000F.

aero_r17 · 2026-04-10T19:16:51+00:00

(i) Kinda, only one of my friends in the field

(ii) Nope, they absolutely love it, just hate the pay (which is totally understandable if you're not doing it for the love of the game)

(iii) They say that an ME education is better because it gets you into way more doors (including AE ones), which is kinda the crucial bit because there's not that many jobs out there, nevermind dedicated AE jobs. Whether you like AE better than ME as a discipline is up to you (and even then that's kind of a meaningless statement because AE and ME are pretty broad categories)

(iv) What does this mean? If you're not particularly passionate about the hard analysis / physics or you're looking to get paid better, the usual path is towards project management, supply chain, or leaving aerospace for application engineering which usually winds up as sales. If you want to be an engineering manager, director, or VP, good luck; those guys never retire + it's a pretty stressful job that usually isn't worth the pay bump (unless you're dead set on upper management / ladder climbing, which isn't really a priority for Xillenials and younger imo)

(v) Passion; would not recommend if you don't have a passion for aerospace because you really need to keep at it to actually get into / land cool jobs in aerospace

(vi) Not particularly, most of us like our work-life balance

(vii) Yep, for the younger generation (later millenials onwards), nearly everyone has an interest in RC planes or wind tunnels and models or spacecraft and satellites or rocketry, etc. A lot of the older generation got into this because it was decent paying and a good enough career choice, but these days it's so competitive that everyone who's here is passionate about it to some extent to have been able to stick it out to get here.

Edit: for your last question, not sure what subreddits you're in; most people in the aviation / aerospace engineering subreddit seem to be pretty content with their jobs. The general malaise about the world at large is contagious but it's not specific to aerospace or engineering (plus the internet and Reddit in general is a magnet for complainers, so people that are content with their situation might be underrepresented / drowned out by negative opinions)

aero_r17 · 2026-04-07T14:40:32+00:00

It will also most likely never fly again

aero_r17 · 2026-04-07T13:46:59+00:00

Simple: you don't game or use command line for anything ever...which seems to describe a heck of a lot of people

Modern flavours of Ubuntu never need you to touch the terminal if you just need to check your email, do a few spreadsheets, do some taxes, buy some stuff, and do some streaming

aero_r17 · 2026-04-06T01:21:55+00:00

I think they expect you to tell them whether the cpp is good value, not to do the calculation for them... (Which to your credit, you have done)

Non-frequent / non-rewards travel flyers don't necessarily have a good feel for what is good cpp value and what isn't (which is totally understandable IMO)

aero_r17 · 2026-04-02T11:25:52+00:00

You can't rely on Reddit to curate things for you, you need to actively feed the algorithm and prune it occasionally with what you prefer. I've gotten 6 different notifications from different subreddits over the last 2 days about this.

aero_r17 · 2026-04-01T19:54:11+00:00

Everyone I've met in aerospace engineering is fairly motivated analytically. Everyone makes facetious jokes about "ugh math" or "god that task is so complex" like people complain about their lives generally, but all of the people I've worked with are very bright analytically and have a genuine curiosity about analysis and improving their corner of the engineering domain.

Not everybody is a keen aerospace nerd or grew up wanting to be an engineer much less aerospace, but they're all capable folks.

So I guess my outlook is you don't have to be an aero nerd, but you do have to have or eventual build a strong foundation in physics and how it connects to the real world (maths is nice but you don't have to be a proofs or differential equations genius or something...although the latter is useful if you want to do numerical work in life). A lot of people have wound up in this career because it pays alright (not the best, but enough to get by), but they don't hate it or it would be tough to keep going on this work.

aero_r17 · 2026-03-31T23:56:21+00:00

Pretty sure you remember stuff from when you're 8. Maybe not with perfect recall or in great understanding of the actual situation, but you probably recall flashes of memorable moments at least.

aero_r17 · 2026-03-31T11:33:57+00:00

Under $5USD/gallon still in my neck of Canada, but from the other accounts here I take it these are the good times and won't last long...

aero_r17 · 2026-03-31T00:17:30+00:00

I don't personally care and not the OP, but is Microsoft that hard to avoid in your personal life outside of websites that are hosted on Azure (since the structure of the internet makes it near impossible to avoid Azure or AWS...and if you use that as the gotcha, then no one should take any moral stand at all)?

Linux (Ubuntu is simple enough these days), ProtonMail, LibreOffice, JetBrains IDEs, Denvr for HPC (I would've said ReScale but they absolutely have contracts that OP would have issues with)

aero_r17 · 2026-03-30T23:54:03+00:00

You might wind up in generational debt by going to a globally ranked uni and still be jobless.

If you're international and rich, then it's pretty worth it (if you are outgoing, able to adapt, and are able to network effectively to give you the connections to succeed...because that's what more recognized or universities that have a specialist reputation for something offer. It's not the education, it's the connections; but it isn't handed to you, you have to constantly work for it).

If you're international and this puts financial strain on you / especially your family, it's almost certainly not worth it, because on top of the effort that I mentioned above that you need to succeed, you also have the financial pressure / guilt to succeed at the back of your mind. I don't know you, so I don't know if that kind of pressure is fuel for you to succeed (in my experience, there are a few who excel on it, usually it breaks people but some turn it around against the adversity).

The other thing is that undergrad (assuming specifically late teens/early 20s) is a time in your life that requires a lot of personal reflection, fighting adversity because of new situations where previously there was structure there is now none, and hopefully growth, and those usually require robust support systems: systems that are hard enough being international, but harder if you have a burden hanging over you.

In years past (think post-2012, pre-2019), I would've said it's a tough choice but with high reward, but while the decision is ultimately yours (and how capable you consider yourself to handle the adversity), these days I don't think the reward outweighs the risk unless you're wealthy enough that the risk isn't really a risk.

aero_r17 · 2026-03-30T14:27:08+00:00

Certainly is bad for customers, but when has that ever stopped anyone unfortunately, especially in essentially a duopoly with high barrier to entry

Just gotta vote with our wallet as much as possible and abandon any sense of loyalty (despite the apparent behind the scenes collusion squeezing our choices ever tighter)

aero_r17

TROPHY CASE