Engineering & Product Development Dramatized

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2015)

I am not going to point out any particular plot points, but some of the details I write may be considered a spoiler by some, so I checked that box to be cautious.
I am an electrical design engineer by profession. I design new products for a living. These are not consumer-type products, but rather, electronic instruments sold to researchers, universities, and corporations. What was dramatized in parts of this film reflects everyday tasks for me. For example, having a supplier steal an idea as happened in this film (here's the spoiler) happens very rarely, if ever. Our suppliers sign a "Non Disclosure Agreement" with us (NDA). In my case, I specify electronic components, so I have a whole list of parts and suppliers. Our company does order custom components from other companies. Usually, there is a set price - we order, our vendor delivers, and we pay them. When we want more, we order more. Plain and simple.
What is dramatized in this film is a supplier behaving unethically. Like I said, this is rare. We do, however, deal with patent trolls - people who see what we are developing, and then claim we stole their patent. That does not happen often, but it can make an impact on our company.
The one major concern, however, is being able to sell an item for a profit that we manufacture. Because of the market we sell to, we can price things accordingly, and our equipment is made in the USA. Consumer products, however, have a much lower profit margin - they tend to be made offshore because of this, and a reasonable profit margin can be realized.
I have to admire the tenacity of the protagonist of this film, and if I were hiring a project manager, she is exactly the kind of person I would want to hire. (I have a soft spot in my heart for single mothers anyway - I have worked with a number of single mothers who were either divorced or never married, and every one of them, without fail, has been a great worker. They need more flexibility, but they pay you back many times over with their productivity and high quality work.)
I enjoyed this film very much. Also, as a church organist (I have a master's degree in organ performance), I heard high quality organ and choral music on the soundtrack, and the producer is to be complimented for selecting and using excellent music.