Biggest Challenges Faced by a System Engineer at Raytheon Technologies
Cesar, a System Engineer at Raytheon Technologies, identifies "selling...a test or a plan to leadership" as the biggest challenge. This difficulty stems from a resistant, established workforce within the aerospace and defense industry, requiring extensive data to justify even minor process improvements despite the potential for increased efficiency, highlighting the inherent tension between innovation and established practices in a large, complex organization.
Project Management, Communication, Problem-Solving, Teamwork, Leadership
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Cesar Cabrera
System Engineer
Raytheon Technologies
California State University, Long Beach
N/A
Engineering - Mechanical
Aerospace, Aviation & Defense, Government & Public Sector
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
Honors Student, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Successfully pitching new ideas and plans to leadership within a large, established organization.
2. The challenge of balancing cost-effectiveness with efficiency improvements when proposing new methods.
3. The difficulty of aligning diverse viewpoints and achieving consensus within large-scale projects.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
I think it's probably selling, either a test, an idea, or a plan to leadership. In aerospace and defense, at least with companies like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop, the bigger aerospace and defense companies are really old. They have a really old workforce, and they're kind of set in their ways.
Sometimes it's really hard. You may find a more efficient way of conducting, maybe, a test or some sort of analysis. When you pitch a test or something like that, leadership kind of just sees the bottom dollar. If something costs a little bit more, it's a lot harder to sell, even though it might be sufficient.
So, you need to have all the data to back it up. And sometimes it's like you have a million other things to do, and it's like, "Is it really worth my time creating, like, a chart or a PowerPoint deck to brief leadership to get approval to do this differently, when I can just do it the old way and kind of just take the hit?"
But I think that's probably the toughest thing: to get everybody on board. You have so many people on a project, and the projects that we work on are massive. You have so many different viewpoints, and sometimes it's really hard to get people aligned.