6 ms·

The million dollar salary thing is compelling. I would certainly switch careers from ML engineering for a million bucks of cash comp, especially in a low CoL lo

The million dollar salary thing is compelling. I would certainly switch careers from ML engineering for a million bucks of cash comp, especially in a low CoL location :) Also, the "30 years old" thing mentioned in the GP seems excessive, surely if they were really desperate to staff up, they could loosen that age limit.

kccqzy 2y ago
My own experience tells me that past 30 years old my thinking is slightly slower in the form of slightly longer reaction times, and slightly longer time to recall specific facts. This hardly matters in my current job but perhaps ATC would be different. Perhaps they are taking that into account.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- swores 2y ago
  What they're taking into account is their mandatory retirement age (56), which is indeed related to things like reaction times for people as they get older; and then they work back from that to say you need to be young enough to have earned your pension by the time you're forced to retire. So a rules change could improve things on that front, as they could for example allow working from 40 to 56 to count as enough to earn a full pension, without any change to their safety policy on the age cutoff for finishing working as an ATC - but it wouldn't be cheap, as you not only are massively increasing the cost of pensions across the board, but you're also paying the same amount to train a 40yo applicant as a 30yo one, but getting fewer years of valuable work back from that training cost.
lazystar 2y ago
20/20 vision in each eye (no contact lenses) is also a requirement. I have a feeling thatll rule out a lot of software engineers on this site.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  I assume plenty of people will be happy to go through LASIK for that
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    As far as I recall, in the Aviation world, LASIK is still a major gamble. If you're a pilot or ATC and come out of LASIK surgery with any weird surgery-induced vision abnormalities like "halos" or "starbursts", you're out, permanently.
    - sgarland 2y ago
      Which is why when I got mine done around 2015, Navy pilots were still required to get PRK. Much more painful and longer recovery, but the risk of defects was lower. I heard they can now get LASIK; presumably advances have been made since then.
- daemonologist 2y ago
  I believe this is incorrect - your vision just has to be correctable to 20/20 in both eyes: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FAA_Order_3930.3C_508_Compliant_and_update_to_App_D_Admin_update.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FAA_Order_39... (Also you can't be color blind.) Still a bit of a risk though - if your vision ever degrades you might be out of work unless you can get transferred to a desk job or something.

kccqzy 2y ago

My own experience tells me that past 30 years old my thinking is slightly slower in the form of slightly longer reaction times, and slightly longer time to recall specific facts. This hardly matters in my current job but perhaps ATC would be different. Perhaps they are taking that into account.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
swores 2y ago
What they're taking into account is their mandatory retirement age (56), which is indeed related to things like reaction times for people as they get older; and then they work back from that to say you need to be young enough to have earned your pension by the time you're forced to retire. So a rules change could improve things on that front, as they could for example allow working from 40 to 56 to count as enough to earn a full pension, without any change to their safety policy on the age cutoff for finishing working as an ATC - but it wouldn't be cheap, as you not only are massively increasing the cost of pensions across the board, but you're also paying the same amount to train a 40yo applicant as a 30yo one, but getting fewer years of valuable work back from that training cost.

lazystar 2y ago

20/20 vision in each eye (no contact lenses) is also a requirement. I have a feeling thatll rule out a lot of software engineers on this site.

saagarjha 2y ago
I assume plenty of people will be happy to go through LASIK for that
- ryandrake 2y ago
  As far as I recall, in the Aviation world, LASIK is still a major gamble. If you're a pilot or ATC and come out of LASIK surgery with any weird surgery-induced vision abnormalities like "halos" or "starbursts", you're out, permanently.
  - sgarland 2y ago
    Which is why when I got mine done around 2015, Navy pilots were still required to get PRK. Much more painful and longer recovery, but the risk of defects was lower. I heard they can now get LASIK; presumably advances have been made since then.
daemonologist 2y ago
I believe this is incorrect - your vision just has to be correctable to 20/20 in both eyes: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FAA_Order_3930.3C_508_Compliant_and_update_to_App_D_Admin_update.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FAA_Order_39... (Also you can't be color blind.) Still a bit of a risk though - if your vision ever degrades you might be out of work unless you can get transferred to a desk job or something.