Engineering can look very different depending on where the work happens. A large organization may have established processes, specialized teams, formal reviews, and deep technical resources (often a solid bench strength of subject matter experts). A startup may move faster, operate with smaller teams, and ask engineers to take on responsibilities that extend beyond a narrow job description. You are expected to be broader and wear multiple hats.
John Sweetser has experienced both environments during his aerospace career. Based in Littleton, Colorado, John has worked as an aerospace engineer, systems engineer, Chief Engineer, and Mission Architect. His career has included time at Sandia National Laboratories, Lockheed Martin, and Sierra Space. That range has given him a practical view of what engineers can learn from organizations at very different stages and scales.
Large Organizations Teach Structure
John began his career at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he focused on modeling and simulation applied to national security work and nuclear weapons. He later moved to Lockheed Martin and worked on space vehicle design before joining Sierra Space, where he eventually became a Chief Engineer.
Larger organizations often expose engineers to mature processes and highly specialized teams. Every conceivable problem has been encountered before, and the mature processes reflect that. There will be established methods for design reviews, documentation, testing, configuration control, and technical decision-making. For engineers early in their careers, that structure can be valuable because it shows how complex work is organized when many people and disciplines are involved.
“You get to see how complex work is organized when a lot of people and disciplines are involved,” John says. “There is a reason certain processes exist, even if they can sometimes feel tedious and burdensome.”
Working in that kind of environment can also teach engineers how to communicate across teams. A single technical decision may need input from several groups before it can move forward, which can be frustrating at times but also reinforces the importance of documenting decisions and understanding why different teams have different priorities.
One can also take advantage of the wealth of knowledge of these large companies. There will likely be an expert for any challenge you come across who is eager to be involved and mentor you. There will be many people available to peer-review everything you do.
Startups Force Engineers to Widen Their Role
After five years at Lockheed Martin, John transitioned to Sierra Space. In a leaner organization, engineers may not have the same level of specialization or support around them, which can mean taking ownership of problems that would be divided among several people at a larger company.
Going from a program with hundreds of engineers and subsystem teams of many engineers to one with 10-15 engineers can be overwhelming. Engineers often panic when they don’t have a subject matter expert to check their work or bounce ideas off of. You may be the subsystem lead for multiple subsystems rather than one of many under a single subsystem.
“At a smaller company, you may be the sole expert at a very junior level,” Sweetser says. “You need to learn how to answer a question and know that you are right without having any SMEs to consult; you need to learn other methods to check your answers without having other resources”
That broader responsibility can accelerate learning because engineers may be exposed to more parts of a project and gain a clearer understanding of how technical decisions affect cost, schedules, customers, and operations. The tradeoff is that there may be fewer established processes (or none at all) to rely on, so instead of simply following a process, engineers may be helping create one.
Process Changes Drastically Between Startups and Seasoned Primes
Large companies often need formal systems because the number of people, interfaces, and technical risks makes coordination difficult without them, while a startup may be able to make the same decision with a short discussion between a few people. The superpower of startups is the ability to be agile and make rapid decisions with relatively few stakeholders involved.
I once was involved with a Failure Review Board for a broken piece of primary structure. The designer and analyst had spent months optimizing a strut to take a specific type of load, and once it was built and tested, the strut failed. We eventually found that certain abnormal loading conditions weren’t taken into account.
By the end of the FRB, we were probably $500k in the hole for this failure, which got me thinking: what value did the company get from going through all of this? The engineer definitely became better at his job with this experience. The entire FRB team learned a lot, but all of those people could leave tomorrow for another company, and then what does the company have?
That’s when it became clear that the value for the company came from learning from this mistake and ensuring it never happens again. This manifested primarily in two ways – the FRB released reports/presentations regarding their findings, and all process documents were updated to prevent a similar failure from happening in the future. The company had just spent $500k to make sure this mistake doesn’t happen again.
With a prime contractor who may have tens or even hundreds of thousands of employees, there simply exists no other mechanism to share knowledge across all engineers. Many lessons learned from failures have worked their way into each process document from decades of programs, resulting in process documents likely worth millions.
Different Environments Build Different Skills
Large organizations can help engineers build depth because working alongside specialists gives them access to people with years of experience in narrow technical areas. Smaller organizations often build breadth because engineers may need to understand more of the overall problem when there are fewer people available to divide the work.
John sees value in both environments. His own career moved from larger companies to smaller. Each progression was met with a smaller bench strength of experts and more individual ownership.
Engineers who have only experienced one type of workplace may not realize how many of their habits are shaped by the organization around them. A process that seems essential in one company may be unnecessary somewhere else, while a decision that can be made in an afternoon at a startup may require weeks of coordination at a large organization complete with a review board. Neither approach is automatically better because they are often responses to different levels of complexity, risk, and available resources.
Communication Matters Everywhere
One constant across both environments is the need for clear communication. John places a strong value on honesty and transparency, particularly when technical teams are facing difficult decisions.
“I believe there is nothing more important than honesty and transparency to be successful in any industry,” John says. “Part of transparency is being able to engage in difficult conversations with critical customers, leadership and other colleagues.”
In a large organization, that may mean raising a concern even when several teams are already committed to a plan. In a startup, it may mean telling a small team that moving faster will create unacceptable technical risk. The setting changes, but the responsibility to communicate clearly does not.
John Sweetser Explains How Engineers Benefit From Experiencing More Than One Environment
John does not believe engineers need to choose between large organizations and startups as though one represents the correct career path. Each can teach something the other cannot, and exposure to both can make engineers more adaptable.
Large organizations can demonstrate how complex technical work is managed at scale, while startups can show engineers how much can be accomplished with smaller teams, faster decisions, higher agility, and broader individual responsibility. Engineers who experience both may become better at recognizing which practices are truly necessary and which ones exist mainly because of the environment they came from.
That perspective can be useful regardless of where they eventually decide to work. For John, moving between organizations of different sizes has reinforced a simple lesson: engineers should pay attention not only to what their company does, but why it does it that way. Understanding that difference can make it easier to adapt, lead, and solve problems when the environment changes.