The company is currently in a transition, which seems to have started when the new management team took over in 2020. Virgin Galactic is transitioning from an aerospace company to an entertainment company - being spearheaded by management from Disney. While this may or may not make sense from a business perspective, it means the engineering is beginning to take a back seat, and by extension the engineers.
First – Virgin Galactic’s approach to its engineers:
Instead of prioritizing building up a bench of experienced engineers with an in-depth knowledge of the product and systems, Virgin Galactic seems to now prefer to hire contractors on a need-by basis and let the direct hires wither on the vine – and I’m concerned the quality of the engineering and product will suffer because of it. Due to the poor documentation and process management, there is a lot of tribal knowledge at VG. With each engineer that leaves for better pay or location, more information is lost and more work is left for the few engineers that remain.
Due to the lack of experienced engineers, learning opportunities for young engineers are few and far between - and the engineers are getting younger and younger. This limits career growth and opportunities, resulting in siloing. It can be very difficult to move on from VG due to the lack of training and skill development.
VG is willing to let good engineers leave due to lower than standard industry pay and location inflexibility.
That brings me to Virgin Galactic’s current management team:
When I first joined VG, it was very apparent that upper management had a passion for space flight – and that passion diffused throughout the organization. They weren’t perfect by any means, but the passion was there, which made a lot of mistakes easier to swallow.
However, once the company went public we got a new management team that had very little experience in aerospace and a lot of experience in entertainment. Now the focus of the company is to develop the brand and the experience, and to treat the product as a very expensive carnival ride. While this approach may make good business sense, it snubs the most experienced and passionate engineers that wanted to develop a new path to space, not to be imagineers.
In addition, upper management can be *extremely* tone deaf to the needs of the rank and file employees. Two examples that come to mind:
Proudly announcing a new office in Tustin 4 hours away with the expectation that employees drive there to attend a meeting, while also implying their lives built in Antelope Valley are now in jeopardy.
Hyping up “leveling” to bring our pay up with industry standard for over a year, only to have it increase by less than a percent.
On top of woes in the C-Suite, middle management has suffered as well. Due to the shift in culture and priorities at VG, managers that have been in the aerospace industry for decades are leaving for other opportunities. As a result, engineers that are only a few years removed from college are having to take up management responsibilities that should be reserved for industry veterans – presumably without a pay increase.
I hate how negative this review turned out – I came into VG with a lot of hope. However, the reality is Virgin Galactic is getting lapped by other companies with better technology, more funding, and bigger goals. I had the opportunity to work on some great projects with some very talented people that I would like to work with again. I hope Virgin Galactic finds its footing and can accomplish its mission.
