Hehe, he's being screwedkilcoo316 wrote:A friend of mine that went through the undergrad degree with me is renting a house, and one of the other fellas there is working for williams... Shaun says he is working from 4pm to 8am... pretty much every day.
He has barely seen the guy and they've been in the same house for over a month.
I am very nearly finished. I plan on graduating in June, but I could really push for middle of March and graduate then, too.SLC wrote:Ok, cool. Generally if the position asks for any experience whatsoever it is not a "junior" position.
I'm assuming this is a UK based team you are interviewing with: From what you describe I would pitch a starting salary at around £26,000. You've got a solid academic background (which all of the applicants will have), but some applicable CFD and motorsport experience (which not all of the applicants will have, certainly not at 21.) You would be looking at a few more thousand pounds if you were a few years older with the same experience, that's just the way employment works over here.
From your post its not 100% clear if you've actually finished your degree - are you in your last year now?
I know a fair few people in F1 aero departments in the UK (I work in one myself!) so if you have any questions feel free to ask.
Good God, that is crazy - how does one live outside of work? There is no way I'll take a job working more than 12 hours a day, and the job will have to be REALLY enticing for me to do more than 10. Why don't teams hire a percentage more Aeros instead of working them 12 hours a day?SLC wrote:
Hehe, he's being screwed
I'd say on average both our wind tunnel aeros and our CFD aeros work around 11 hours per shift.
Most teams are looking for people with a level of dedication that is so high that working 60-70 hours a week is considered slacking, and anything over £20K as a starting wage is considered a bonus.AeroGT3 wrote: Good God, that is crazy - how does one live outside of work? There is no way I'll take a job working more than 12 hours a day, and the job will have to be REALLY enticing for me to do more than 10. Why don't teams hire a percentage more Aeros instead of working them 12 hours a day?
As far as the guy working 4PM-8AM, nothing can be worth that.
What other Aeros are there which aren't working 11 hour shifts? Are they all senior level or what?
Are these kind of working conditions common in other departments?
Thanks so much for your help!SLC wrote:I can only speak about our current department, though I imagine its the same for most F1 teams. We essentially have four kinds of shift. Morning (6amish - 2pmish), Day (9amish-6pmish), Evening (2pmish - 10pmish), and Night (10pmish-6amish). This keeps the wind tunnel running 24/7.
CFD Aeros only work the Day shift.
When it gets busy and you are working under a tight deadline, people do work 12 hours a day and even sometimes (though pretty rarely) have to come in on the weekend. Thats life, and just the way things work. Some of our more senior members (ie, the ones running the department) are often in 14-15 hours a day.
And as a first job within F1, mid-£20,000 is an average starting salary. High £20ks is very good. Above £30k is unreasonable. However, the thing about F1 is that salaries go up by a substantial amount quite quickly - if you are a good engineer you can expect to be on £50k within 3-4 years. Once you move up into a senior Aero position (after 6-7 years) the money spirals into the region of 6 figures +. F1 teams also run race bonuses (so extra money every time one of your cars wins a race or gets a certain amount of points), championship bonuses (dependent on what place you drivers/team place in the overall championship for the year) as well as personal merit bonuses. If you join an F1 team that happens to win that year (say both driver and manufacturer) you can be looking at an extra £10,000 at the end of the year. Not too shabby.
manchild wrote:I'm not an expert on this but if you're expecting to work overtime frequently isn't it better than to negotiate good £ per hour instead of negotiating net salary?
If only that was the case, there would be alot of wealthy mechanics in the sport. But unfortunately I don't know anyone who gets paid by the hour. Our design office has been working eight in the morning until half nine, ten at night since the end of Summer now until the end of Jan to get the new Vectra ready, and depending on the work load at the time, you will be expected to work until the job is done! As for money I wouldn't ask for less then £35,000 as I know a number one mechanic in F1 is getting paid just over £38,000 per year. Although I'm not going to go into detail about names or teams when away recently on test in Spain, every night, including set up night he was up until 3a.m. just dicking around with stupid little jobs. Then back to the hotel and up at 7a.m. ready to head back to the circuit for breakfast! Every day for a week! Any employer in F1 will expect you to hand your life over to them! If I may be so bold as to give you my advice, get out while you still can and study business and investments instead!! 
