Dream job: Sysadmin/F1 pit crew member with Red Bull racing Another day down the salt mines getting you down? Your correspondent's been lucky enough to get out and about today to the first day of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, where I learned about what might just be the Best IT Job Ever: sysadmin and rear jack operator for the Infiniti Red Bull Racing Team's (IRBRT) Formula 1 team …
Willing to work in a high stress environment setting up and maintaining a huge fleet of kit?
Check.
Willing to work with a horde of devices, and the people who use them known to sometimes be more fragile than the kit itself?
Check
Willing to undergo a grueling fitness regime to be able to cope with the physical exertion of being rear jack operator?
Check.
Willing to work with AT&T to maintain connectivity?
Sorry, that's a deal breaker. My sanity is tenuous enough as it is.
"Most jobs in F1 aren't brilliantly paid, the teams budgets are squeezed enormously."
This filters down to other forms of racing too, where at best, you might get flights and accomodation paid. At best.
Even if not at F1 level, you're looking at multi-day events, trying to wrangle to get time off work (you do have a regular job that pays money, remember?).
"Can I actually apply for this job. I can't see it on the Red Bull racing website?"
Like most higher level forms of racing, you usually don't just get there by applying through your "regular" channels.
Like the story says: "Admit it: you want this job. To get it, I'm advised you need to be keen on motor sport, work your way up through lesser formulas and network to make sure you're aware when an opportunity arises."
That is, if you're reading this here on ElReg for the first time, you're not eligible. Sorry.
They do that at the end of each season really. In fact McLaren were (in?)famously caught for a month or so debating whether to "upgrade" their Button or Magnusson model to the retro Alonso 2.0 model.
Sadly the Alonso 2.0 model has, erm, crashed. So they're rolling back while they work out the bug fixes.
Been there done that.
As the other AC says, it's an incredibly intense environment. The hours are stupidly long at the circuits, switching from rabidly intense to excruciatingly boring. It’s better now with limited testing but I used to have to hop from race to test to race, it’s not good for your sense of reality.
It was a magic three years but I was very glad to get off the merry-go-round at the end.
Pay was average, hours were completely mental.
Even as a race car person, it was a bit much. Not for the faint of heart, or people with families, or people with hobbies, or people who basically want a life outside of work.
I know a couple of people who work in F1, one enjoys it, the other not so much...
It's a short distance from Caldecote Lake, and a 10 minute walk to Bow Brickhill train station.
It has been Stewart and Jaguar before, moved there from Blakelands.
My brief experience in F1 was to contract on telemetry. It was more secret than some of the gov stuff.
Wouldn't be secret now though, long since obsolete.
My brother works for McLaren doing composite stuff (and he was at RedBull before that). A few years ago when the teams were allowed more staff at races he tagged along to help out at the odd race and his job during pitstops was just getting the rear wheel on the refueller's side out of the way. His other job seemed to be to deliberately lurk in the background when the ITV cameras were about...
Though in all honesty the hours are long and the pay is average. Currently the points bonuses aren't great, and as things stand it doesn't look like McLaren will be getting points for a few races! I'm still waiting for him to get me a tour of the MTC, but in times past I've been to their old place in Woking via Sun and also to (what was then) Benetton via Veritas.
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