r/antarctica • u/PaulWhyFiles • 3d ago

Medium-term (5ish years) help / plan to get a south pole job?

My long-term goal is to winter-over at the south pole.

I've got a Bachelors in Industrial Engineering (2010), spent sent several years doing factory floor automation for Frito-Lay, before starting my own firm with a friend from college doing System Simulation (Discrete Event, System Dynamics, Agent based modeling). Sold the firm in 2021 to care for my grandparents and have been out of the workforce ever since. Still caring for my grandpa right now. When he passes, I will have zero living family members left, and want to take a new direction in life.

I did small-medium-business IT to put myself through college, and have networking experience in the windows server 03 - 08 era, from active directory through active / passive clustering. Obviously including basic networking (I run a 10GbE network at home today).

I've repaired my own cars for 25 years. I'm OK at stick welding. I have a lot of medical knowledge due to caring for my grandparents.

My grandfather is in his twilight years. I don't care about the money (I'm fine in that regard), I'm interested in the life experience.

How should I focus myself over the next few years to be best positioned to get a job? I don't care if I'm washing dishes or chief of engineering. Thanks!

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u/livwill ❄️ Winterover 2d ago

You can get a job right now doing manual labor or washing dishes, so long as you have a clean record, us citizen, and good health. A 5 year plan isn’t necessary unless that’s just how long you want to wait. If you cool with going to McMurdo your chances go up as well. For IT jobs, you need more experience. Check out GHG corp and what they list for qualifications. Ive worked in IT at South Pole, McMurdo, and Palmer.

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u/Ok-Alternative-5175 2d ago

Plus, once you've spent time on the ice, it's usually easier to find a position at another (US) station if south pole is the end goal

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u/sciencemercenary ❄️ Winterover 2d ago edited 2d ago

Hi. Clarification needed: Must it be at the South Pole, or are you really aiming for any Antarctic work?

I'd start by looking at the kinds of jobs available and targeting a couple where you have interest and some prior experience. Then spend the next few years getting more experience in those areas for your resume. Check out this sub's employment FAQ. If you're a US citizen, click through to the contractor company pages to see what kind of jobs are available -- this will be most productive in early spring [boreal] since that's when most job openings are posted.

Good luck.

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u/Minervas-Madness 🐧 2d ago

You got some good advice already, so I'll just add: Take care of your health. Antarctic contracts come with a medical exam, and the ones for winter contracts are more strict. Especially for South Pole.

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u/Competitive_Hand_160 1d ago

If you are an engineer they hire facility engineers for winter for South Pole.

If you have good mechanical skills look at utilities tech and maintenance tech jobs.
Pole often has issues getting quality people who can PQ and pass the background checks.

The best advice anyone can give you, just apply. Anything and everything people here tell you is speculation.

Rumors and hearsay over jobs and qualifications run rampant in this program. The only way to really know is to apply every couple months over the course of a year.

I’ve worked all 3 US stations, the best thing really is to just start applying.