Awesome, for a period of time... - Structures Designer SpaceX Employee Review

4.0
17 Oct 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You get to be an important part of and full on own lots of extremely important and projects. Lots of pride comes with being the only person to have cartooned, analyzed and designed a$100,000 piece of spaceship or rocket, especially coming straight out of college. I know for a fact i wont have this level of impact or responsibility at any other company. parts I've made and designed are in youtube videos with millions of views and fans. It definitely boosts your ego a bit...

Cons

This place takes whatever you're willing to give for as long as you're willing to give it and will always ask for more. The high energy, super positive reviews are almost always from new employees, and the super negative reviews are almost always from burnt out or fired employees. In reality, this place is awesome and there's no other company like it in the world. period. However, you WILL burn out eventually. some people make it 5+ years, some only make it a year. Everyone's tolerance is different but if you're able to force yourself not to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week you'll be able to last a long time and probably enjoy most of it. I dont think there could have been a more rewarding or exciting job i could have gotten right out of school. Pay is tricky, on one hand the salary is very average for aerospace (maybe below average, 75-85K for structures, prop, general engineering undergrad) but you do get stock awards vested over 5 years. joining the company now you dont get many and the tax you have to pay to receive all of them is generally out of reach of your salary so you need to trade stock for tax, but its still a nice forced savings account type of investment. Also raises are between 0-3%, with 4 or 5% given to very few people, they're normally every year but last year we went 18 months with out a raise so its not consistent.

Explore other reviews about SpaceX

4.0
6 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You learn so much because the work is so freaking intense, its a lot of fun if you're the type of person who loves to get emerged in hard problems. The hours for me were not too bad but I was the exception, all the other interns I was with dealt with 60-70+ hour weeks, some interns came in at 10am and left at 12am, when I say its intense, I'm not joking. This is however very unique to the Starbase location. I've heard Hawthorne is a lot more chill. I honestly despite how challenging the role was always look back on it with a sense of pride in my work, and longing to be back there. It really does feel that you're doing world changing things.

Cons

Very un diverse upper management, I'd say the company is pretty diverse in the lower ranks, but once you start to look at the org chart and see who's in charge, you realize that its mainly just white people. Makes you wonder if as a person of color you too will be able to move up. Housing sucks: there was limited housing on campus for full time employees, you have to wait a year plus to get off the queue and once you're off you only really get tiny homes as the option that are in an inconvenient location. Interns don't even have the option to get on campus housing, they give you 3k in a housing stipend and expect you to find a place in Brownsville. I'd say its very hard to maintain a relationship while working here if you don't have an understanding partner, the work schedule is brutal and you really can't slack off.

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