r/controlengineering

Clarification: expectations of companies toward early career hiring candidates.

Hey all, guy with a controls masters and rather limited GNC experience (recently left a startup after half a year over the boss trying to hide information about a critical engineering issue from our customer, the US govt, and telling me to work without a safety factor). I have about 3 years of unrelated experience working software quality and integration, but they weren’t directly GNC related. I’ve been applying to various US-based GNC/flight controls roles, level 2 or equivalent thereof, typically at larger, more established companies.

I’ve done some interviews, I have more interviews lined up, but in general, what’s expected of candidates like me? I have a lot of rote knowledge from school (which I’ve been out of for years) and more recent studying I’ve been doing as part of interview prep, but my confidence isn’t strong since the lean nature of the startup I worked at meant I had to learn and figure out solutions and processes on my own. No seniors or mentors to validate whether what I was doing was good practice or whatever.

I’m partially asking to fill holes in my studies and knowledge, and also to prep for an in-person interview I have coming up. Thanks for any insight!

As a mechanical engineering professor for over 25-years, I lean "old school". So, my students suggested I reach out to the Reddit community. Here's my first post.

I first heard of the ball-and-beam (BNB) platform in my controls courses 40-years ago. However, I never heard of its origin and/or who invented it. My former controls professors and robotics colleagues don't know either. I also pinged the founder/owner of Quanser (a professional colleague). He didn't know either.

Literature review seem to point to Prof. Karl Astrom who's now over 90-years old. I pinged his department chair at the Lund Institute a few years ago. He didn't know either and said (understandably) that Prof. Astrom doesn't respond to email.

Without references, I use the following "origin" story to help motivate my students - the Apollo Moon Landing. The 1950s demanded control engineers. Without friction, the lander's dynamics is a double integrator - which is what the classic BNB is. So, the BNB served as a table-top trainer; designs like lead compensation and tools root locus and/or Bode plots, are needed to ensure minimum overshoot (not crash into the Moon) and settling time (not run out of fuel). As control theory grew, designs like pole placement, LQR, etc provided alternatives.

Any thoughts and references to the BNB for this first time Reddit poster?