technical officer

researcher

research associate

postdoctoral fellow

project manager

National Research Council Canada

Typical day:
Login to ticketing system and email, pick up unassigned support requests and assign them to myself
Assist clients who emailed me directly for assistance or with questions

Learned:
Enterprise Mcafee products, Windows 10 Deployment

Management: Sporadic and difficult to predict.  Project objectives and priorities constantly shifting with no explanation.  Suffering from severe communication flow issues.

Workplace Culture:
Fairly relaxed, accommodating of sick leave, vacation.  Typical public service environment.

Hardest Part of the Job:
Attempting to follow the aforementioned constantly changing project expectations and priorities. 

Most Enjoyable Part of the Job:
A fair degree of freedom to accomplish assigned tasks and duties with little management intervention.

If you are serious about growing your research career, do not work for the NRC. This is a contract research organization (CRO) which means that they run projects for other organizations, usually small or medium-sized companies that want quick, cheap and rudimentary research at low tech. The NRC isn't interested in exploratory research, there are no opportunities to develop or innovate your own ideas. Management is only concerned with process, not outcome. After a few years working here, you become completely unemployable in industry (because you don't stay up to date with the latest technology) and forget about going into academia. Academia won't touch you because you won't have any teaching or innovative research specialization. Plus, the NRC is a huge bureaucracy and there are endless meetings about meetings, that lead to nothing. 

It's a government laboratory, which means right off the bat, everyone is making an effort to promote every individuals' rights and freedoms. My manager was pretty good, though not the best communicator, so we didn't interact very much unless he had concerns to address with me. The culture and work-life balance were great, as these are things that are very high up on governmental priorities. Very little room for advancement, unless you are willing to move to a different government branch, or have a PhD. In terms of job security, once you're in, you're in until you want to leave (barring extremes like criminal activity or workplace harassment), but as a result it's not easy to get a permanent position.
The salary and benefits are much better than you find in private industry for lower level positions, but I think once you get up into management or consulting, it's not as good as the private sector. 

Due to federal government regulations, working hour was monitored. Thus, I had to work carefully and efficiently during the working hours. I have learnt a lot on CAM, Optics design and 5 axis micro-milling from this experience. These learning have widen my knowledge to a great deal. I had an excellent relationship with my working supervisor with whom I still maintain a good relation. The four member team was great and extremely focused. We have achieved a great deal in one year (completing 2 major projects within timeline) due to high team spirit. This was the first job after my graduation and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing was hard. The most enjoyable part was when my supervisor happily accepted my ideas and appreciated my ideas. I felt recognized and had a sense of accomplishment almost everyday.

- IRAP in NRC is a Govt Agency but NOT a Crown Corporation. 
- So NO horizontal movement into any other Govt organizations to similar positions at an equivalent salary scale.
- Job title and salary DO NOT necessarily translate into an intriguing work life, let alone a promising career path.
- Workplace culture is poor, stressful and unproductive; consisting of repetitive tasks, incompetence and inefficiency.
- A lot of micromanagement and emphasis on documenting and inflating every minute steps taken in order 'to show off' the amount of work done.
- A large number of people at the later stages in their career, waiting to retire with no motivation to do something effective or cooperate to improve.

Work schedule is relaxed. Work done is more important than time spent. Quality and safety are prioritized over speed of output. Care is taken to ensure employees are informed of concerns regarding all facets of safety, ranging from physical through intellectual. Even ergonomics (often ignored by more corporate facilities) are closely monitored with yearly surveys and fund allocation. Safety officers are almost obnoxious in their efforts to prevent accidents of all kinds. Thanks to them, lab accidents are almost unheard of outside of minor spills.The hardest part was finding something productive to do while waiting for necessary supplies or incubations.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The people and support from them and Management.  Plenty of opportunities for advancement with training and reward for hard work.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Workload and deadlines.  However - teamwork and the rewards of a job well executed as well as the opportunity to assist the public with navigation and execution of needs.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Busy, productive and supportive.  Teamwork highly supported.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Busy, demanding, rewarding and personal satisfaction.

I worked on cool and exciting projects with self-driving vehicles and gaining valuable experience. The pay was on the low end in my opinion, but we all have opinions. Pay could have been better considering my job, but not bad. One thing that caught me off guard is that I was hired as an engineering intern, but performed much more research analysis than I thought an engineering student would so be wary of the job title a bit. Still gave me a great experience! 9/10 would work here again!

- 7.5 hr workday with flex shift schedule.
- I learned an immense amount about aerospace research, design & instrumentation.
- The management is definitely in line with a research institute, with Program Managers willing to work with you on their projects. This was a definite plus for me.
- Co-workers were from various areas of instrumentation, mechanics, avionics & engineers.
- The hardest part of the job was the last minute changes as well as delays to client work projects.
The most enjoyable part of the job was that there was never a day that was the same.

The NRC iis a world class R&D organization with state of the art facilities and the most qualified professionals in the country. Management is competent and fair, but in the past few years the continuity of some important projects was unfortunately affected by political changes at the federal level in Ottawa. Despite this, NRC is one of the best organizations I have worked for, and I would not hesitate to recommend it. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Technical officer 3 salaries reported	$69,259 per year
Researcher 6 salaries reported	$93,075 per year
Research associate 1 salary reported	$98,346 per year
Postdoctoral fellow 1 salary reported	$64,437 per year
Project manager 11 salaries reported	$90,930 per year

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