I am an engineer for an Aerospace/Defense contractor and I can confidently say that me and the rest of my young coworkers are severely underpaid. We have very expensive degrees and are essentially living paycheck to paycheck in current conditions.
Our department is understaffed and due to poor definition of our responsibilities within the company, we are constantly pulled in multiple directions and working several jobs at a time. Luckily we have a good boss who does stick up for us— but still, we are getting very tired of these conditions. We are paid half as much as our “senior” team members and our rent costs more than their mortgages. On top of this, corporate has denied us COVID leave and as a result we have had to donate PTO to other coworkers.
We are being stretched thin. Engineers are regarded to be high functioning people and our productivity is often taken advantage of. I have spoken with my other younger coworkers about dropping our productivity until our roles are more strictly defined and we are not expected to go above and beyond for insufficient pay.
I am getting very tired of this bullshit. I want to quit but it’s a very bad time to be job hunting and I can’t afford to miss a paycheck. I’ve been applying elsewhere but every company just seems to be the same thing. HR would rather shoot themselves in the foot and let us quit than give us a living salary.
Sorry for the rant.