When Jacob Boydston left a fastmoving autonomous vehicle team in Silicon Valley, he did not expect to find the same mix of cutting-edge tools and hands-on engineering back in aerospace.
Now a flight-sciences engineer in Everett, Wash, Boydston spends his days turning ideas into testable hardware — and using the Boeing Software Factory to move from concept to flight faster than he imagined.
“I had an amazing team, lots of smart people, but I would go home every day hungry for doing hands-on work,” said Boydston, who was on a leadership track at his previous job. “Working at Boeing gives me the rare opportunity to do creative aerodynamic design at scale while leveraging my modern software skills.”
His path to Boeing threaded through varied engineering posts, spending more than a decade in aerospace before entering tech.
Now with almost two years under his belt at Boeing, access to tooling and innovations such as the Boeing Software Factory (BSF) fuels his feeling of fulfillment.
“It’s much more akin to the leading-edge tech I used in Silicon Valley,” Boydston said. “It’s available to the engineering population as a whole and in my eyes, enables our creativity.”
Boydston left his job in tech two years ago after her said he was “hungry” for hands-on engineering work. (Photo by Vanessa Misciagna © Boeing)
Flight-sciences engineer, Jacob Boydston at his desk in Everett, Wash. (Photo by Vanessa Misciagna © Boeing)
As an early adopter, Boydston said the software has reduced barriers and led to faster design processes.
“I worked for over four months outside of the BSF, trying to set up a software repository and get it connected to automated tooling that I had grown quite accustomed to prior to joining Boeing,” Boydston said. “Switching to BSF, I had everything I needed and migrated the project in less than a day.”
He traces his interest in aerospace back to childhood, when he grew up just a few miles from Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
“Airplanes are in my blood,” Boydston said. “My dad would take us to the park at the end of the runway to watch the F-16s scream overhead at sunset.”
Now, at a different stage of his career, he knows his tools and designs will help shape global air travel for decades.
“The work we do today will outlive us and touch billions of people around the world,” he said. “It’s endlessly fascinating to think about how I can enable the next generation of engineers.”
By Maddie Crisalli and Vanessa Misciagna
Boydston grew up next to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona where he said he was inspired by fighter jets flying above him. (Picture provided by Jacob Boydston)