air traffic controller

contrôleur aérien

software engineer

infrastructure specialist

senior software engineer

NAV CANADA

The job has changed a lot over the years, primarily due to technological updates.  Some of the tasks performed regularly throughout my career with NavCanada, were:
     - pre-flight weather briefings
     - filing flight plans for pilots - both private vfr pilots and commercial ifr pilots
     - issuing NOTAMS re: safety issues affecting flight or special circumstances - such as balloon flights, military flight operations, search and rescue operations, missing aircraft, etc.
     - communicating with pilots in vicinity of the airports when I worked as airport advisory and with pilots in Arctic Canada when I worked in the Flight Information Center via landline telephone, sat phones and later cellphones; and via VHF, UHF and HF radios where practicable
     - updating manuals periodically 
     - recording daily operational statistics

The first thirteen years I worked in single stand stations, meaning I was often alone on shift.  At those locations, I did hourly weather observations and recorded and sent them on the computer.  Our computers were on a company intranet and most of the programs we used were created 'in-house' for our specific purposes.

So even though I worked as Flight Service Specialist for 28 years, I kept up with changes with in-house training given by the technicians who had developed the 'new' program, and the job was constantly changing - new rules and procedures, new policies developed as circumstances required, etc.

I am looking forward to working with a dynamic, growing business here in North Bay.

The training process in the Vancouver Area Control Center in Surrey(where the whole province is controlled out of, ie: NOT the Vancouver airport) was very challenging.  The first 8 months of generic training were unpaid and required a lot of memorization with exam and simulation results of 80% or more required.

Once through that you go into specialty training which is also challenging but now focused on the specific airspace you will work - potentially for your whole career.  More of the same as above but only a few months long.  Still unpaid though.

If you make it through that, its onto the operations floor and that is a whole new experience.  The culture there is quite toxic and the training process requires a lot of improvement.  The leadup to getting to the floor leaves one ill prepared for the challenge that talking to REAL airplanes poses.

I have found the people at NAV CANADA to be incredibly welcoming and collaborative, always ready to help out their colleagues. Employees understand that the work the company does (providing a public service that maintains safety) is important and most are dedicated and want to do a good job.

I have found workload to be high in corporate roles (i.e., not air traffic services front-line positions) and there is a lot of pressure to get things done. 

Benefits are really excellent, including a pension which is a rare thing to find in the job market nowadays. Many employees spend their whole career at NAV CANADA, and turnover is very low - it is common to see coworkers with 15, 20, or even 30 years of service at the company. 

NAV CANADA can be an exciting place to work if you are an air traffic controller, a flight service specialist, a technician or an engineer as you are hands on with the customers but if you work in the offices it is your typical corporate day to day boring environment!  

They compensate very well and offer many opportunities.  Management is not well treated and they expect that you do the job of 3 in return which burns out many of their managers and the reason why there is such a high turnover in the management group. They claim that you can speak your mind but if you do you can suffer the wrath if your opinion is not the same as the executive team and you don't comply and go in the same direction.  Managers at Nav Canada are well paid puppets.

During my time at NAV Canada, I received training on various systems, but I was never given the opportunity to gain practical experience with the equipment. My assigned mentor was largely absent and offered little support to help me progress. After some time, I was assigned a new mentor, which improved my experience somewhat.

However, just two weeks before completing my one-year probation period, I was laid off without any explanation. This was particularly frustrating as I had completed the full development plan a month prior, but my efforts were never acknowledged.

Overall, the work environment was disorganized, and I felt unsupported throughout my time there. Based on my experience, I would not recommend working at NAV Canada.

The day to day work was fairly fast paced, worked with incredible professionals, including engineers, Technologists and project managers. The technology employed varied extensively due to the nature of the air navigation industry, especially the modernization of a former government department which was achieved fairly quickly and maintains a high level of cutting edge technology, especially when compared to other air navigation services around the globe.

ersonal responsibilities include:

Design, develop and manage Flight Billing System and Flight Services Applications like Tower Movement, Operational Information Systems for navigation Canada.
Creating restful services for various flight services for various airport users and external customers of nav Canada
Writing unit tests, integration test and load tests and integrate them with Microsoft team foundation server
Write requirement, Design documents and creating architecture diagrams with vision.


Technical environment: C#, Unity, MSTest, Moq, Log4net, Oracle , Java, Microsoft Azure, Entity Framework, MS Sql, Service Bus, Azure Storage Blobs, Active Directory etc.

When working the cafe it was all basically cashier work, & serving, in the Propeller, & Buffet it was non stop standing, walking, replacing buffet dishes as customers emptied them, helping bust tables, and the clean up. Ive learned that standing, & walking all the time isnt for me, & i dont like being stalked, & stood over, hounded, & bullied. I felt that management hired me to abuse me. The culture of the Nav Can is much military & police presence; & a lot of French employees. The hardest part of the job was the walking, & standing, & replacing Hot food trays in the buffet. The most enjoyable part was meeting new people.

Tough training that lacks support for the trainees. Training can take 2 1/2 years from start to finish with a 20% chance of making it. I thought of quitting and going back to my old job several times. 
Company is short staffed in every position and it affects morale. Lots of old crusty guys that need to retire. Former managers were more concerned with promotions than supporting the operation, leaving the new managers having to deal with previous bad decisions while being undertrained. 
The job is fun, but the workplace is terrible. Only those with a thick skin survive. Be warned!!!!


Decent place to work.
-The organization is still struggling with how to manage hybrid working long term. Right now flexibly to WFH is high. 👍🏻
-Some teams are VERY tight and have worked together for many years. In other teams, it's been tough connecting with them through Covid. Hopefully this will continue to improve.
-Pay is quiet good, I'm not sure why people complain about this so often. Perhaps that's how it got to be so good 🙂

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Air traffic controller 7 salaries reported	$108,358 per year
Contrôleur aérien 20 salaries reported	$151,445 per year
Software engineer 6 salaries reported	$105,167 per year
Infrastructure specialist 11 salaries reported	$94,798 per year
Senior software engineer 5 salaries reported	$121,200 per year

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