I work at a company doing something very similar, owned by an aerospace giant as well.

We are led to believe that safety is the most important aspect of any part of our work. At least that’s what we’re told at group meetings and company-wide meetings. But when push comes to shove and the (arbitrary) schedule demand a test, hacky code is produced, checks fall off the list, and errors do happen.

Progress seems to be more important than safety. We are instructed to show some sort of significant return on investment within 6-12 months for the funding we’ve received. It’s pretty sad.

Telling mangers that we need to take it low and slow at first makes them angry and ignore the engineers who do the good work in exchange for engineers who do it fast.