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Yes, India has a plan to develop a nuclear aircraft carrier named as INS Vishal.The Indian Navy’s latest aircraft carrier, the 65,000-ton supercarrier INS Vishal, the second ship of the Vikrant-class, will be powered by a nuclear reactor, according to anonymous Indian Navy sources. Furthermore, the INS Vishal will be able to accommodate up to 55 aircraft (35 fixed-wing combat aircraft and 20 rotary-wing aircraft), launched using a catapult assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) aircraft launch system, incorporating U.S. defence contractor’s General Atomics’ new electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) technology, the Business Standard reports on November 7.Given the incorporation of these new technologies, the Indian Navy source also revealed that the aircraft carrier will not enter service until the 2030s. (Originally, India planned to induct the carrier in the 2020s.) It is still unclear when the construction of the new warship will begin.The INS Vishal will be the first non-Western aircraft carrier equipped with the complex CATOBAR launch capability. CATOBAR aircraft launch systems put less strain on the airframe of planes during takeoff reducing maintenance cost in the long run and also allows carrier-based aircraft to carry a heavier weapons payload. Furthermore, CATOBAR launch systems increase the sortie rates of carrier air wings by allowing a faster landing and takeoff rate.The Indian Navy’s preference for the CATOBAR aircraft launch system indicates that the new warship will in all likelihood not carry MiG-29K Fulcrum fighter jets, the current mainstay of India’s naval combat aviation. This will open up opportunities for competitors, in particular France and the United States, to push their naval combat aircraft. As I reported previously (See: “India to Consider French Fighter Jets For Navy’s Newest Aircraft Carrier”), representatives of French aircraft maker Dassault Aviation pitched the naval version of the Dassault Rafale twin-engine, fourth-generation multirole fighter to the Indian Navy in early 2016. (The United States has been quietly pushing Lockheed Martin’s F-35c Lightning II and McDonnell Douglas F/A 18 Hornets).The domestically designed and produced Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), next to being deployed aboard the INS Vikrant, India’s first indigenously built aircraft carrier, is also slated to serve on the INS Vishal, according to Indian Navy officials. Two naval prototypes of the Tejas LCA successfully conducted test flights from a so-called Shore Based Test Facility—a full-scale model of an aircraft carrier deck—in Goa earlier in the year. Nevertheless, senior Indian defence officials have repeatedly stated that the Indian Navy’s naval combat aviation requirements cannot be covered by domestic production.Selecting the right aircraft will be critical for India’s naval power.“The type of aircraft stationed aboard the new supercarrier will heavily influence the new vessel’s design and is thus of critical importance,” as I explained elsewhere. In the middle of 2015, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States received requests for “technical and costing proposals” by the Indian Navy’s Naval Design Bureau regarding the design of its new aircraft carrier (See: “Will India Buy Russia’s New Supercarrier?”). Should the adaptation of the CATOBAR system be officially confirmed, it will almost certainly rule out Russian participation in the construction of the carrier given strict U.S. export control and intellectual property restrictions.India has no experience with nuclear propulsion in a surface combat vessel, so U.S.-India or France-India technical cooperation on nuclear technology is a possibility. However, among other things, this would require changes to current U.S. nuclear policy. India and the United States have formed a Joint Working Group on Aircraft Carrier Technology Cooperation (JWGACTC) as part of the so-called bilateral Defense Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI). According to publicly available information, the talks were largely confined to the possibility of incorporating EMALS technology on the INS Vishal and did not discuss nuclear propulsion.

From my experience, the simple answer is yes, but with several caveats and a few considerations about how involved engineers should be.The three main benefits of having engineers involved in product decisions are:A higher likelihood of reaching optimal product / technical trade-offsUnique product ideasA stronger sense of ownership for engineersOf course, there are teams (and even whole companies) with product decision-making processes that mostly exclude engineers. The way this usually works is that the product owner (let's assume that's a product manager going forward, though it could be any other stakeholder like a CEO of a start-up, a client of a services firm, etc.) makes a request (often in the form of “specs” or “requirements”), and the engineer responds with their estimated technical cost (e.g. 3 weeks of development, and some maintenance cost going forward). They might agree and move forward, or there might be a few more iterations of suggestions from the PM followed by estimates from the engineer until a solution is reached.The problem with this approach is it ends up feeling like a negotiation, with no single party having visibility across the entire landscape of both user preferences and technical details. Such situations can easily result in sub-optimal solutions. On the other hand, if the engineer involved has a solid understanding of the product, it's a lot easier for them to help brainstorm more creative alternatives for possible solutions.As an example, earlier this week, an engineer on my team pointed out that our feed caching logic was really complicated, which was leading to a lot of technical maintenance burden. This logic contains rules for whether a user's feed should be regenerated with new content, or simply show content from the last load. From the bugs that engineer was addressing, it seemed like users were confused about the product experience they were having as well.After a quick meeting with the feed product owner, the engineer proposed some simplifications that would make the caching code simpler, and users' experiences more consistent and predictable. A few hours later, we had an A/B test live in production to evaluate the proposed simplification. I highly doubt we could have detected and addressed this issue without having engineers heavily involved in the product development process.Next, engineers can often bring unique product ideas to the table. Since engineers tend to be data-driven, and also possess an understanding of what may or may not be technically possible, they can contribute ideas that may have otherwise been overlooked. At Quora, our engineers have contributed ideas to almost every part of our product. One area that stands out to me is our New User Experience (NUX). NUX is where we form an important impression on our users, but it's also a point where we gather signal about what users are interested in order to improve their future experience. The engineers that work on NUX at Quora live and breathe that part of the product. They know its ins and outs, on both the product and technical sides, and have contributed multiple improvements.The final benefit of involving engineers in product decisions is that it encourages a sense of ownership. Engineers are at their best when working on something that they're passionate about and feel they have some ownership of. Ownership helps us think through details. There are a lot of reasons why you don't want engineers calling all the shots when it comes to product decisions without input from other functions, but completely excluding them undermines their sense of ownership, control, and purpose. On the other hand, involving engineers in product decisions gives them ownership and skin in the game, which helps with morale, performance, and drive. To build a product that's engaging for users, you need an environment that is engaging for the engineers you're working with.With that in mind, the question becomes: To what extent should engineers be involved in product decisions? Here are some questions that can help answer that:Does the engineer generally enjoy being involved in product discussions? Some engineers prefer to just pump out code and solve difficult technical problems. However, I wouldn't take that at face value; often you have to dig deeper into why engineers don't seem to enjoy being involved in non-technical parts of the product development process. Does it interrupt their work? Does it feel unproductive? Do they feel like their opinion isn't valued or is easily dismissed? Have they lost trust in the process because it's not sufficiently data-driven? In many cases, you can involve them by resolving these direct complaints, and address broader organizational issues along the way!Is the engineer passionate about this product in particular? Do they use the product? Does it solve a problem they have personally? Does it fulfill a purpose in the world that they care about? The more you can answer “yes”, the more likely they will want to be involved in product decisions and be able to contribute constructive solutions.What is the engineer's experience level? In general, the more senior an engineer, the more he or she will expect and be expected to be involved in product decisions. He or she will also have more intuition, and more experience juggling involvement in product decisions with getting the technical work done.The gold standard here is having engineers feel like they are full partners in the product development process. Not only would they feel a full sense of ownership and contribute to decisions that involve product / technical trade-offs, they would also be contributing to and evaluating product ideas in general. There's something magical about being involved in an idea from inception to implementation.At Quora, we have a Product Engineering team where we've tried to accomplish just that. While at some companies, the “product” part of Product Engineering might simply equate to front-end or UI work, at Quora, when we say “product”, we mean it! Quora's Product Engineering team is a group of talented software engineers who work on complex technical problems but are still heavily involved in product decisions. Alongside Quora's data-driven culture, agile tools and processes, and ambitious mission, this team helps lead an efficient (and fun!) product development machine. We would love for you to join us!

Fellow graduates from the University of Oklahoma went on to do everything from patent law, petroleum engineering on oil rigs, Regional Manager at Target, electronics manufacturing engineer at Raytheon Advance Products Group, Masters in Nuclear Engineering at MIT, and others.I joined the Civil Engineer Corps of the US Navy. My first job was Deputy Public Works Officer of a small base in Hawai'i. Here's a small synopsis of what I did:- Supervised engineers who provided facilities engineering services.- Budgeted for the facilities maintenance and repair of the base facilities (~$50 million/year)- Coordinated and tracked the completion of projects and ongoing operations through supervision of my engineers. Areas covered included facilities management, urban and range (i.e., firing range/missile range) planning, contract acquisition, utilities, transportation, maintenance, and grounds/janitorial/refuse/etc.- Negotiating with labor unions.- Continuously looking at internal processes, comparing them with direction from higher headquarters, and adjusting to improve efficiency, balance current demands with future planning, and workforce shaping.My next job was with the Seabees in the deserts of Asia and Africa. Since most engineers don't join the military, I'll skip this piece, but suffice it to say that my engineering skills were called on regularly in areas where our technical reach-back support was not easily available.Next job was teaching Facilities Management and Public Works as the single and only instructor for this topic in the entire Navy. It was an odd position to be in as the mouthpiece for the 2-star Admiral teaching policy and and procedure to the entire US Navy, and sometimes USAF and Coast Guard as well.My current job is titled Director of Facilities Engineer and Acquisition, but it's better to describe me as a few jobs at once:- Military/Civilian Interface (in a Supervisory role over 19 ~$100k per year civilian professionals)- Director of Engineering: Consists of 1 Civil, 1 Mechanical, 1 Architect, 1 Electrical, and a manager who design small and medium single-discipline projects.- Director of Contracting and Acquisition: 4 Contract Specialists and 2 Performance Assessment Representatives. The PARs monitor the performance of service contractors (refuse, janitorial, etc.). The CSs award contracts and execute contract modifications.- Director of Construction Management: This takes much more of my time. I have 4 Construction Managers (degreed engineers) and 3 Engineering Technicians (non-degreed, came from the trades). They do the following functions:---Project package development - When the Facilities Management team (not my current job, go look at my first job above) decides to fund a project that is going to be contracted out for completion, my Construction Managers and engineers from Engineering work together to create a project package with a cost estimate, defined scope of work and enough technical details of the requirements so that the intended type of contract can be chosen and competed.---Design management and Request for Proposal (RFP) preparation - My CMs and engineers work together to decide what the relevant specifications and requirements are for a finished project - this is called a Request for Proposal. The RFP can require the contractor to design the building themselves or to take an existing design and build it.---Construction management - safety and quality compliance, and overall administration of the contractor's construction efforts by the government team. You'd be surprised how many things are missed or are impossible to foresee during a construction job. This includes oversight of contractor submittals (e.g., what specific materials is the contractor installing to comply with specifications, how is the contractors interpreting certain requirements, etc.), quality assurance, prospective contract modifications, scheduling and progress payments, and liaison with customers.--- Schedule and cost control - My CMs work closely with the contractor on each project to ensure an accurate schedule and keep costs controlled. They have to decide when to retain money from the contractor's invoices to cover punchlist work or withhold for possible liquidated damages because of insufficient performance on the part of the contractor.My next job (hopefully after an MBA or a Masters in Mechanical Engineering w/ Energy Focus) will likely be the Public Works Officer (i.e. Director of Facilities) of a small Navy or Marine Corps base, or I will be in DC in charge of a specific type of money.Hope this helps!