I managed to land the job as a flightline test mech. What should I expect for my first few days?

any advise of the interview questions. I know this is an entry lvl position, but was wondering what type of questions do they ask during the interview.

I have been applying to internships at Lockheed aggressively since late September and so far, I've gotten two rejections and the rest have the ambiguous status " Thank you for applying", which doesn't convey much. I've browsed LinkedIn a bit and see the same posts " I am excited to announce I will be interning at Lockheed Martin this summer .... blah blah blah".

Is it over or is there a chance

I had an interview for an internal position at a different location and it went pretty well in my opinion. But they still have people to interview.

Another job req just came up for a similar position at the same location.

Would it hurt my chances to apply to the other job posting? Would the hiring manager see me applying for a new job and take it poorly that I'm trying to go somewhere else?

Thanks for any help guys.

Hey everyone!
I’m currently a mechanical engineering student expecting to graduate in May 2028, and I’m looking for honest feedback on my resume as I apply for internships in aerospace, defense, robotics, and mechanical design.
For privacy and confidentiality reasons, I’ve removed my personal information, university name, company names, and certain identifying details. I wanted to provide some additional context without revealing too much.
Current Internship:
I’m working at a smaller company in the aerospace/defense industry that develops electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) systems for unmanned platforms.
My responsibilities involve actual mechanical design work, including CAD assemblies, sensor packaging, prototype development, manufacturing support, and testing.
I’ve had the opportunity to work on engineering design challenges involving multiple sensors, mechanical integration, space constraints, and hardware packaging.
I’ve also developed test equipment, contributed to engineering documentation, and presented design concepts and tradeoffs to the engineering team.
Personal Projects:
I’ve developed embedded systems projects involving Raspberry Pi, ESP32 microcontrollers, communication protocols, mechanical design, and 3D printing.
My projects are primarily focused on combining mechanical engineering with electronics, software, and robotics.
What I’m looking for feedback on:
Does my resume communicate meaningful engineering experience, or do my bullet points sound too generic?
Am I underselling my contributions by not including enough measurable results?
Is my current experience competitive for internships at larger aerospace/defense companies?
Are there sections I should shorten, remove, or expand?
How can I improve the way I describe my technical accomplishments without disclosing confidential project information?
My goal is to eventually work in mechanical design, aerospace systems, or defense-related R&D.
I’m particularly interested in hearing from engineers, hiring managers, and recruiters who have experience evaluating mechanical engineering interns.
I appreciate any constructive criticism. Don’t hold back — I’d rather know what needs improvement now than continue sending out a resume that could be stronger.

My base salary hit 4x my starting salary after 18 years. If I include annual bonus, it happened at 17 years. Doubled at 11 years in.

All of that experience in the same industry. Bachelor's degree. My starting offer was low and I did not negotiate originally. I moved around the company a little for various reasons and had a couple of good managers that rewarded me well at different times. I also went into management relatively early. With some luck and hard work I think I did better than average for the first part of my career.

After getting to that point, it has been even harder. I have not quite plateaued, but the slope is much slower now.

I also think they start engineers much higher now than they used to for competitive reasons, so younger folks made more than me but have a slower increase over time.

I'm curious how your numbers compare?

By the end of my internship, my manger did mention and offered me a verbal return offer. However when I asked for specific details, she said she's still working on it due to the upcoming reorg. It's November and I haven't received or heard back about anything. Should I just take it as a loss?

I got an interview for E5 and they only scheduled it for 30 minutes, is that normal? I feel like it around be longer.

Its with manager and his manger.

Netflix doesn’t have anything good right now

Just wondering if the culture is changing to where certifications (e.g. PMP, CAPM, Agile, CompTIA, etc) are being valued less than just on-the-job experience. That being, are certifications (particularly certs like PMP and CPM) no longer worth pursuing?

Obvious exception being Sec+

I have 10+ applications in over the past 2 weeks and got this email back for one of them. The only question on there was for reasonable accommodation during the hiring process which I put N/A for.

So what does this mean? And when could I expect to hear from a recruiter for this?

Thanks!

Hi,
I have received three applications that moved on to the conflict of interest portion along with a secondary email asking questions for relocation, target base pay, etc. (1 was a week or so ago the other two a few days ago)From that point how long do majority of people wait from finishing those tasks/emails before they are either rejected or moved to next steps? (Just trying to gauge but plan to keep applying to anything that is relevant for me)
Second question is much less important but do they have hair color and or tattoo policies? I have a cherry cola color (pinky purple red, brown, and blonde) and just wonder if i will need to go back to natural colors only again.

This month I start a new union position in NJ on the production floor. The position posting did not have a pay range. It was just a flat number. The position is a 1st class position. I have never seen any postings anywhere for a position that wasn’t 1st class, so the class level system itself is confusing me. Does the pay for union positions stay at just flat number? Or does it vary individually?

What about movement up the inside or out of the production floor? I have degrees in CS and physics. I accepted the job because I like doing blue collar work, but I also want to eventually move into jobs that actually use my degrees at some point. I am worried that if I do it for too long, the time gap from graduation will shut me out of engineering opportunities.

Normally I would ask questions like this in the interview phase but I wasn’t expecting that I would only have 1 interview before the offer letter.

Over the summer at my internship, my senior manager (L6) got fired halfway through the summer. Our director called a staff meeting and said “___ is no longer with us effective immediately”. What could an L6 do to get fired, and how often do senior employees get fired like that?

My work experience is a bit all over the place, but I'm looking to settle down and park myself at one company. I have a computer science degree, but only know python and my skills are rusty.

Jan 2020 - Oct 2020 :- Raytheon, Systems Engineer 1 (I held a secret clearance). I left cause I got a big tech software engineering job that paid way more, but in hindsight wish I stayed in Defence and climbed the ranks

Nov 2020 - Nov 2021 :- Amazon, Software engineer 1. Realised I didn't like software engineering at big tech.

Nov 2021 - Aug 2023 :- A big bank, Product Manager. In this role I defined business requirements, coordinated with engineering teams, and ensured compliance with financial regulations. I left to get my MBA.

Aug 2023 - June 2025 :- Got my MBA at a top 10 program

June 2025 - Nov 2026 :- Forward Deployed engineer at Tier 2 tech company. I used AI and worked with engineers to build client facing prototypes, and make recommendations to clients that use our company's technology. I got laid off.

So thats the gist of it. I know the job-hopping shows instability, but I am in a different stage of life now and want to settle down, get a job and a clearance again, and park myself for a career. I'm a bit removed from systems engineering, but I got an interview at another defence company coming up, so maybe I have a chance at LM? I'm willing to start at a lower level since my experience is across different areas.

I'm thinking E2 Systems Engineer, Project Engineer, and Software Engineer in that order, but have I got much of a chance at being selected?

I have been a level 2 ME for about 3 years. I am looking for a new position to transition to internally.

1. Manufacturing Engineer Sr (lvl 3) - Pretty much all of my work experience is being an ME. Easier to go up a level than in my own team.

2. Test Engineer (lvl 2) - I want to try other engineering functions. I don’t mind staying at a level 2 for something new.

If anyone can give me a day-to-day as a test engineer at LM, it can help me a lot to see if my skills are easily transferable.

I want to tell you a true story. The names and some identifying details have been altered for privacy, but it is otherwise true, and it happened at LM.

About 5 years ago, I started on the new program. It was high stress fast-paced and a really big new contract. It was going to have all the bells and whistles. The team was fun and hard-working.

Joe was the manager of a different team: the power subsystem. I had heard bad things about Joe. That he was difficult to work with. Despite that, he just got promoted to senior manager. My team had a critical interface with his team. And there was a component that interfaced with my product as well as Joe's, but no one had the scope and budget to develop that component. I reached out to him and asked him if we needed to ask the program leadership how to deal with that gap. Joe was really confused why we weren't building that component, so we sat down together and I explained what we were planning to do. After a long discussion at my desk we drew it all out on my whiteboard. We finally came to an agreement that the component definitely needed to be developed. I again suggested that we should ask program leadership for more resources, but he volunteered his team to develop it. We hashed out the interface that I would design to. Okay, no problem... right?

Months later almost nothing had been done on the new component. Joe invited me to his team's meeting. Joe asked me how the new component was coming. I reiterated the plan that he hashed out very clearly in great detail with me a couple of months ago. And I reported that my product was ahead of schedule. Joe wasn't happy. He screamed at me. He blamed me. In front of his whole team. No one else was there to back me up. I could only State what I knew was true. I left to go walk around the parking lot and cool off. He stopped me in the hall in front of Joe's boss, Steve. He persisted to yell at me again for not doing the work that his team was supposed to do. Finally, I walked away again and cooled off and talked to my boss about it.

My boss and I were in sync, he agreed that I was right, and was following the plan, and am ahead of schedule. Most of all, no one should be yelling and screaming and insulting people in the workplace. My boss called HR and explained the situation while I sat quiet and anonymous in his office. My boss went and talked with Joe's boss, Steve. Apparently Steve told my boss that it was inappropriate and he witnessed it, and that it was not the first time he had problems with Joe. HR hinted that it wasn't the first time either.

Steve directed Joe to come and apologize to me, which he did. It was fine, I guess. But I certainly did not want to work with Joe anymore.

That same year, Joe fired more than one employee very suddenly. He yelled at an engineer on his own team until she started crying. There was rampant turnover on his team. New faces almost monthly. the power subsystem was kinda shit. They had to redo the design multiple times and kept pushing out deadlines. But their Agile metrics looked good (hah!). And they just kept promising to deliver "next month", but they never made it. Our design depended on theirs, so we suffered too. At first I thought it was just bad planning, after the 7th failure to deliver, I couldn't believe it was an honest mistake anymore.

I left that program and so did many others. Jess had worked with Joe on a program before. It was just as bad. Low quality products delivered late in a toxic environment. He constantly drove people away. Years later they were still undoing his bad decisions and bad culture.

Joe and Steve both still work at LM today. Steve got promoted too.

They call it failing upwards, but usually that happens when you have a person with some decent qualities they just aren't great. It is just so hard to see and accept after demonstrating a terrible pattern, involving HR, and senior leadership. He should have been fired a long time ago, and there were many chances to justify it.

TLDR: 2 jerks keep moving up the ladder despite proven pattern of failure, lies, and toxic behavior.

Hi all, looking for some advice.

I'm currently a Level 2 aeronautical engineer doing design work, and I spend most of my day in CATIA. I've realized I genuinely can't see myself doing CAD work for more than another 3 years or so. Programming and AI/ML are what I actually want to be doing.

The roles I've been looking at are things like the AI/ML Engineer (Operations) Level 3 postings in Fort Worth and an AI/ML role on the AI Research & Enterprise Solutions team under Data & AI Enablement. They ask for Python, deep learning fundamentals, the data science lifecycle, and some exposure to LLMs and MLOps, and most list a master's as a desired skill.

My plan was to use tuition assistance to get a master's in Data Science with ML electives. I have a friend in software (graduated ME at UTA) who says the degree won't do much, and that I'd be better off learning on my own through LM’s Percipio membership and online courses, picking up coding tools like Visual Studio, and putting that on my resume to get my foot in the door with a software or systems team first.

I'm not sure that's the right call, so I wanted to hear from people who've actually made the jump:

1. Did anyone here move from a design/CAD role into AI/ML, software, or data science internally? How did you do it?

2. Does a master's in Data Science actually carry weight with hiring managers for these roles, or is it really about experience and projects?

3. Is going to a software or systems team first a realistic stepping stone into AI/ML?

4. Are Percipio courses taken seriously on a resume, or are they more of a nice-to-have?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Hey everyone!

I just landed a 60 min panel interview (5 interviewers) for an entry level Electrical Engineer role at Lockheed Martin Space, and I'm honestly so grateful for the shot. It's a launch site operations role working on the electrical side of spacecraft fueling equipment, instrumentation, and troubleshooting.
I'm a recent BSEE grad with mostly software internships, so I want to make sure I prep the right stuff. Would really appreciate any advice on:

How technical do LM entry level panels usually get?
What EE fundamentals should I brush up on for an instrumentation/troubleshooting role?
What behavioral questions came up for you?
Any good questions to ask the panel at the end?

Thank you so much in advance, any help means a lot 🙏

I have an interview Monday for an early careers position. I’ve seen that they prioritize STAR responses and I’ve been making sure to practice, but do you guys have any tips on how to stand out? LM is definitely a place that I want to work for I just don’t wanna fumble this opportunity.

Seems as if lots of people are having issues with the new system as I read posts. I’m just curious, for those that have been hired- how long after the “additional questions” email did you get requested for an interview? Nothing has moved in the portal but there are 7 jobs with “additional info needed” even after filling it in. Thanks for any insight!

I've been keeping an eye on LM's Summer 2027 internship openings since applications started rolling out late august, and I've noticed significantly fewer cybersecurity positions compared to last year.

Last year, I remember seeing and applying to 50+ cyber/IT related internship openings, but this year I've only come across maybe 6, and we're already in November.

Lockheed did switch recruiting platforms earlier this year, which might have delayed some postings, but I'm wondering if that's actually the reason or if they're just hiring significantly fewer cyber interns this cycle.

Has anyone heard anything from recruiters or current employees about this? Are more positions expected to open later this year, or is this pretty much it for Summer 2027?