Careers at NASA/CERN for optics/photonics engineer?

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Im thinking about applying to do a masters degree in Optics/photonics. I really want to work at NASA or CERN in the future, so my question is do these two institutions demand engineers in my field?

 

[Andy Resnick]

I only have experience with NASA, and the useless answer is "yes, NASA has a lot of use for optical or photonics engineers". Given the state of funding, it's not clear how much hiring NASA (either civil servant positions or contractor positions) is actually going on. There's a reasonable amount of churn in the contractor environment, so positions probably come along semi-periodically. I would be very surprised if there are civil servant hirings going on.

 

[Link]

do you mean most of the engineers in the field come from the military, or are consultants based in outside engineering firms?