Inside a hydraulic part for an aircraft, the edges where channels meet have to be rounded off by hand and checked with an endoscope. Dassault Aviation calls the people who do this rayonneurs and is hiring several. It says mechanical training is valued but not required. It asks for good dexterity and the ability to picture shapes in 3D, and says watchmakers and dental prosthetics assistants have relevant experience.
People in both trades already spend their days working on small parts by hand and checking them closely. The aircraft parts are bigger, but the hand work is much the same.
Almost half the job descriptions in this article are in French, German, Dutch or Danish.
Precision manufacturing
Diehl Defence is hiring people to finish tiny metal parts by hand under a microscope and calls the job ideal for trained watchmakers and goldsmiths. For a job assembling optics in Germany, Safran Electronics & Defense would ideally like someone who has worked or trained as a dental technician, an optician or a watchmaker.
This spring Morpheus Space, which makes electric thrusters for satellites, gave a job the title "Precision Mechanic/Watchmaker/Dental Technician". It said a career changer from a skilled trade or a university dropout would also fit.
In the UK, Leonardo lists jewellery and watchmaking as useful backgrounds for a manufacturing technician who assembles very small parts. It wants "steady hands with minimal tremor under magnification".
Experience from video games
BAE Systems' simulation business builds training software for armed forces. In Czechia it is hiring a QA analyst to test that software. It would like experience of making or modding games, "no matter the scale". Modding means changing existing games.
Mirai Robotics, an Italian startup building autonomous boats, is hiring a designer for the screens people use to control the boats. It prefers someone who has designed screens for games, whether a released game, a mod or a game made for training.
Vehicles
Rheinmetall's Dutch business is hiring a mechanic to maintain and modify armoured vehicles and asks for experience maintaining trucks or farm vehicles. For its vehicle mechanic jobs in the UK, Babcock says experience at a local garage or a dealership is highly desirable, and so is an engineering background in the armed forces.
Milrem Robotics, the Estonian maker of unmanned ground vehicles, calls defence experience "welcome but not essential" for a senior technical lead in the Netherlands and says it is just as interested in people from the car industry.
Model building
This autumn Wingcopter, a German drone maker, was hiring someone to build composite parts. Career changers without technical training were welcome if they had solid hands-on experience with composites, for example from model building. Schiebel, the Austrian maker of the Camcopter unmanned helicopter, told applicants for similar work that they could be "a trained carpenter, model maker, or a tech-savvy craftsman". Some drone makers also count flying model planes as experience for their pilot jobs.
Nordic Wing, which builds fixed-wing drones in Denmark, says hobby work on model planes is a plus for a job in the department that glues its drones together, and that you don't need to be a drone expert. It wants someone who gets a certain satisfaction from things fitting together the first time and has the patience to do the work properly.
