Space Launch Engineering - Materials Engineer NASA Employee Review

Much of the work can be hands-off, such as certification work for flight readiness. Pay has fallen behind what the industry offers engineers, even after adding in benefits, when compared to the working level (GS-13). And there tends to be a bottleneck trying to get promoted to GS-14, but then seems to ease a bit for those that get above that. Unfortunately, OPM defines the pay and engineering is lumped in with all other professions across the government, so your pay is bound to other lagging fields of work.