Best to worst engineering team

[RCruler]

From what I can tell as an outsider it seems there is quite a bit of movement among the people in the industry. One day, this guy is at Axial and then Redcat, or this guy goes from Horizon to AE and then to Vanquish type thing. I am basing this really only on what I can pick up when Josh from Vanquish makes some industry inside type comments in his YouTube live streams. All that is to say, I think it is fluid.

I also get the sense from some of the comments that the RC industry is not likely the best place to go if one wants to be a high paid engineer. I was looking recently at AE's career opportunities and they were looking for quite a seasoned and experienced engineer with the top salary being $80K. Said person would presumably have to live relatively near and that is not a good living. I can't recall but they wanted advanced degree, several years industry experience and more.

Maybe if they offered free bagels in the morning, but otherwise, no way

 

[89Industries]

From what I can tell as an outsider it seems there is quite a bit of movement among the people in the industry. One day, this guy is at Axial and then Redcat, or this guy goes from Horizon to AE and then to Vanquish type thing. I am basing this really only on what I can pick up when Josh from Vanquish makes some industry inside type comments in his YouTube live streams. All that is to say, I think it is fluid.

I also get the sense from some of the comments that the RC industry is not likely the best place to go if one wants to be a high paid engineer. I was looking recently at AE's career opportunities and they were looking for quite a seasoned and experienced engineer with the top salary being $80K. Said person would presumably have to live relatively near and that is not a good living. I can't recall but they wanted advanced degree, several years industry experience and more.

Maybe if they offered free bagels in the morning, but otherwise, no way

RC is an enthusiast industry so you're evaluation is pretty spot on, but even as engineers move from one brand to another the management style and priority at each company can be quite different and result in pretty different levels of products and quality.

And yep, I saw that AE job posting as well. It pays less than I made at a similar level almost 20 years ago and I was underpaid then because I was in an enthusiast industry (bicycles). Plus AE and VP are in expensive parts of California where rents and salaries are even higher.

 

[RCruler]

That's what I was thinking, one of the most expensive areas in the country, maybe world to live, pay not at the level it needs to be is going to attract weaker talent at best. Or it shows lack of vision, hey will take some person who is willing to work for free but actually pay for talent, no way.
Seems more and more the enthusiast side of all business, RC included, is dwarfed by the private equity squeeze every last drop efficiency mindset. But that's a bigger serious topic beyond toy cars

 

[ferp420]

funny i never thought of ether of those towns as high rent areas

funny fact i remeber when they build the office building team associated is in heck i remember when they built that road its on i rember off roading on that road back when it was still orange groves

 

[ZeeJay]

Paying top dollar for an RC engineer would only raise costs on end product for a hobby many don’t even realize exists. I didn’t understand the level of it until August last year at a car show with an RC “car show” attached and I didn’t fully grasp then what I do now. No doubt these companies make money, but I’m guessing if you were to compare ledgers to lets say Cummins Inc, Cummins probably spends more on coffee than Axial makes in a year. I understand that is not a fair comparison, it serves as an example that these RC outfits are not capital rich environments. To do so would mean the average 1/18 scale would cost easily RTR as much as a 1/10. Being an RC engineer in such a niche market is like law enforcement or a teacher, it’s something you want to do because it’s your passion, money is more secondary to it. Obviously people take these roles on knowing there isn’t 180K at the end of it.

 

[89Industries]

funny i never thought of ether of those towns as high rent areas

funny fact i remeber when they build the office building team associated is in heck i remember when they built that road its on i rember off roading on that road back when it was still orange groves

I was VP was east bay rather than Sacramento but it's still higher rent than many places.

Moving from the Midwest to California was a big shock on my finances in 2007. I think it's even bigger now since housing in many parts of California has far outpaced inflation or wage increases since that time.

I owned my own house in a nice part of Minneapolis as a single person earning a max of $65,000 a year.

When my wife and I moved from California to Colorado we had already been outbid on a few houses by over $100,000 in all cash offers on houses in semi-sketchy neighborhoods of Oakland.

RC engineers are engineers who have spouses that make a lot of money and happen to live in the rc company area. If I lived near one of those companies I'd be the perfect candidate.

I'm not saying they should move to crappy places either though because it becomes tough to get employees for other reasons. And honestly a lot of the inspiration and ideas for this stuff comes from the culture near where the companies are located.

 

[K.O.M.]

1. Boom Racing- ProBuild Wheels, the selectable transfer cases, PHAT axles, Python servos. The have a complete lineup of just incredible products
2. MST- Thier planetary transmission is sweet along with the chassis on the MTX-1 and their constant pursuit of bettering the drift scene
3. Vanquish- Just seems to be a well-rounded company who knows what they're doing and the marketplace they are going after
4. Traxxas
5. Tamiya- They engineer to just to be different it seems, but it also makes the builds fun
6. RedCat- look at the lowriders and some of newer stuff coming out. They have come a long way!
7. Element- They were looking promising for a while and now still riding that wave, but for how long
8. GMade- Very cool products and hope they continue to get better
9. Axial- I just don't know anymore...i think they gave up
10. Carisma- I think they do a lot with a little. They are not out to be the best, just put out stuff no one else is. They found a niche
11. CrossRC/RC4WD


Who puts together the best engineering and part quality/fit and finish. From my experience Boom Racing, but Vanquish and MST have to be up there as well.

Tamiya is at the top of this list. All the stuff that people are doing now were at some point already done by Tamiya. They had scale trucks before scale trucks were a thing, think of the line of semi trucks they have been selling for decades. These things have had self-locking differentials and multi-speed transmissions for a long time. Tamiya had "trail" trucks before "trail" trucks became a thing--CC01 and Bruiser/High-Lift variants. Monster trucks? Clod Buster. Tamiya had crawlers before crawlers were a thing--CR01 variants, released around the same time as the AX-10 (2008).

I just want to be clear, I am not a fan of Tamiya's current product line-up--they are currently leaning so heavily on "versatility" of their chassis kits and also on their retro legacy(that part I don't have a problem with.) They can absolutely design cutting edge stuff as evidenced by their TRF line, but they are so pricey compared to what everyone else offers based on what you get, that I seem to think that Tamiya has a A LOT of overhead (just think of all the LICENSED bodies they produce), and it shows in their offerings. They are not a performance brand currently by any means, but they have the ability and capacity to do it at any time if they wanted.

When I think of "engineering," in the RC world, I think about new ideas or new categories of vehicles that are being brought to the table. You surely can make a high quality product or improve upon an idea, but that's more like adding beats and re-mixing an already great song. So in terms of engineering, based on this list and behind Tamiya, I have:

Axial: expanding scale derived drivetrains and vehicle types to the RC world (solid axle, rock racers, desert racers)

Traxxas: the Slash--full fendered bashing racing machine that had semi-scale appearance and movement; the Summit basically made all the selectable drivetrain features and packaged them into something that was very durable; the Unlimited Desert Racer is still the top dog and the standard to which all desert/go-fast rigs will be judged against--though Axial's Yeti came out first, the UDR refined that concept to something more.

Losi (not on your list): but with the acquisition of multiple brands (through Horizon), they have basically turned things like solid axle monster trucks (the only REAL monster trucks IMO) into performance vehicles that don't break all the time. They produce the only current alternative to the UDR in the Rey series, and they have provided an alternative, more user friendly way to drive/balance RC motorcycles

Runner Up: Redcat has some very original thought in the lowrider series and they have evolved their crawler series year after year. The rest of their lineup is derivative of everything else.

Runner Up: Kyosho (not on your list) but they had the first "scale" motorcycle that actually behaved like a motorcycle in the "hang-on" series; they were a pioneer in the nitro powered 1/8th scale on-road and off-road scene particularly with the Inferno series.

The rest of that list don't really make anything that is original--they make high quality products, but it's all a derivative of something that was already designed, they are just making it out of a "better" possibly more durable material, which does require engineering, but not really as innovative as some of the examples already listed above.

 

[K.O.M.]

I was VP was east bay rather than Sacramento but it's still higher rent than many places.

Moving from the Midwest to California was a big shock on my finances in 2007. I think it's even bigger now since housing in many parts of California has far outpaced inflation or wage increases since that time.

I owned my own house in a nice part of Minneapolis as a single person earning a max of $65,000 a year.

When my wife and I moved from California to Colorado we had already been outbid on a few houses by over $100,000 in all cash offers on houses in semi-sketchy neighborhoods of Oakland.

RC engineers are engineers who have spouses that make a lot of money and happen to live in the rc company area. If I lived near one of those companies I'd be the perfect candidate.

I'm not saying they should move to crappy places either though because it becomes tough to get employees for other reasons. And honestly a lot of the inspiration and ideas for this stuff comes from the culture near where the companies are located.

My wife and I moved to the SF Bay Area from Washington D.C. in 2004. We bought our house in 2009 right when the market started to rebound--best investment/financial move either of us have ever done. It was luck more so than anything, but 2007 was peak before the crash. The price of our house today is STILL over $400k ABOVE what it cost in 2007, and easily 3x what we paid for it in 2009.

Most of the engineering jobs in anything fun like bicycles, motorsports, or niche hobbies are underpaid. I was a PM at a Civil/Mechanical/Electrical firm from 2010 through 2019 and now work for a gov't contractor as a mechanical designer--both roles are in the low six figure range, but I'm shocked anyone that has an engineering degree would work here in California for less than $75k a year, but people are out there getting paid $50k-$65k a year as an engineer in a coastal city working for a "fun" place. I can't do it, so I guess my passion has limits.

 

[RCruler]

Redcat is an interesting one you bring up that gets slept on or poo poo'd by too many. At a minimum I get a sense they are trying to bring value to the customer in a meaningful way. While they didn't invent RC low riders they were the first to recognize a market and made it accessible. It has been more of a success than most insiders would have guessed. The Gen 8 while not "innovative" necessarily is a solid crawler and at least a few years ago when I had one set next to many of the "other" brands was a heck of a value and most of its faults were no worse than any other.

The Ascent and recently Ascent fusion is a heck of a deal for 99% of people who don't spend time on the internet theorizing about this stuff and just go out and enjoy it. Again a lot a value if not perfect. But when a company like Vanquish say delivers a kit with bendable links, it's, "oh that's just an oversight" but if Redcat does it, watch out, the internetz open the gates on them is a good example.

 

[89Industries]

My wife and I moved to the SF Bay Area from Washington D.C. in 2004. We bought our house in 2009 right when the market started to rebound--best investment/financial move either of us have ever done. It was luck more so than anything, but 2007 was peak before the crash. The price of our house today is STILL over $400k ABOVE what it cost in 2007, and easily 3x what we paid for it in 2009.

Most of the engineering jobs in anything fun like bicycles, motorsports, or niche hobbies are underpaid. I was a PM at a Civil/Mechanical/Electrical firm from 2010 through 2019 and now work for a gov't contractor as a mechanical designer--both roles are in the low six figure range, but I'm shocked anyone that has an engineering degree would work here in California for less than $75k a year, but people are out there getting paid $50k-$65k a year as an engineer in a coastal city working for a "fun" place. I can't do it, so I guess my passion has limits.

Young and stupid I guess. I was 33, not married, no plan for kids when I moved to California. Got a job with the top company (at the time) in bicycle suspension. Got to fly around the world to races, test sessions and product launches and work on really cool, interesting (to me) products, and get my name on some patents. So experientially fantastic, financially not so much.

Amazingly, we moved from Oakland to Boulder (not cheap either) and were able to afford twice the house in Boulder compared to what we were looking to get in Oakland. Plus public schools for the now 6 year old are quite good, no need to consider paying $25,000 per year for a private school(though people here still do, plus I dislike private schools and think good education should be provided for all). So now we pay less on mortgage than we were paying for rent in Oakland. Granted my needs of space for 1:1 car project, bikes motorcycles, tools, etc doesn't help with finding cheap rent or inexpensive houses to buy.

Anyway, a few years after I left the company that had brought me to California, they actually had to have consultants come in and figure out why they couldn't hire any competent or experienced engineers. The reason was compensation was totally out of whack for the area.

 

[ferp420]

were i live in california its still cheap living and the houses are still affordable

5 acers 2 houses water and all the sun you can shake a solar pannel at under 60k and best part the nearest neighbor is a mile away
pre covid though but the deals are still outhere if your willing to do the work

 

[Gula]

89Industries have you ever dealt with Paragon Machine Works, a bicycle part manufacturer, in Richmond CA?

 

[89Industries]

Yes. Great people.

 

[Gula]

lol, that was a former employer of mine

 

[89Industries]

I could see that. I mostly know them through friends and bike rides and events, but I did some fill-in contract work for pmw around 2016-17 (I think?)

 

[durok]

I could see that. I mostly know them through friends and bike rides and events, but I did some fill-in contract work for pmw around 2016-17 (I think?)

Back when I was in better (MUCH better, LOL) physical condition, I definitely had heard about Paragon - I wwas hoping to someday get a custom frame built using parts from them. Very cool!