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Comment by VieElm | Hacker News Reader

I don't really know of too many sophisticated military weapons that don't require contractor support. The military doesn't really hire professional engineers. The involved enlisted serve as maintenance crew and understand basics and know how to read manuals and use tools, officers fly and command things. Even the vocational schools for the enlisted that learn to do the maintenance on such equipment are often taught by civilians. Engineering takes a lot of schooling which would be on the level of an officer, but officers are commanders. Officers are management, not usually individual contributors except for maybe in the medical field where nurses are officers.

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When I was an engineering student I had several friends who were enlisted in the Air Force reserve while in college. They did pretty advanced electronics / avionics maintenance during their weekends and inevitable 3 month deployments in Afghanistan. When they graduated with electrical engineering degrees they stayed enlisted since it was less stress / more fun to work with the hardware than manage.

Just because someone is enlisted doesn't necessarily mean they aren't educated or specialized.

Adding to my sibling post, the USAF hires a ton of professional engineers. Many officers are engineers by education, though higher ranks are rarely engineers by trade. Many LTs and Captains do engineering work, but career progression is harder if they want to stay in it so they either switch or get out and continue as a contractor or civilian after 4-10 years. On the civilian side, there are many thousands of civilian engineers employed at the depots and other locations, but not as often at the operating locations.

In my experience, those officers may have engineering backgrounds but are not doing direct engineering work. They are usually project and program managers.

You will find the most civilian engineers at major ranges and test facilities. Places like Edwards AFB, White Sands Missile Range, Patuxent River NAS, China Lake, etc. The DoD employs tens of thousands of engineers at these and other sites.

Yeah, the Air Force wants all its officers to be "leaders of men" and not technicians. They really ought to bring back the warrant officer track for people with critical technical skills and no interest in management.

The world needs more of a "warrant officer track" in general, IMO.

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