Great engineering experience - Structures Engineer SpaceX Employee Review

4.0
17 Mar 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The work environment is very fast paced. The average age of the SpaceX team is well under 30. Groups are typically very small and each individual engineer has a huge amount of responsibility. It is very nice as an engineer to have such a large amount of control over your project and to make large impacts on the flight vehicle design. You will be exposed to a wide variety of projects which keeps work interesting and you learning as an engineer. Engineers are responsible for their parts from conception to flight - making CAD models, doing analysis, making drawings, and working with the manufacturing and production teams. Engineers are very unlikely to be pigeon-holed into a specific tasks for years on end. As the company is growing in size it has managed to keep much of the small company feel within the engineering groups. In addition most peoples hours have been scaled back to 50-60/week, but it can still jump to 80+ in crunch time. Working as an engineer at Spacex is really about working with a bunch really bright people to build some awesome hardware and send it to space. You will have to make some sacrifices to do so but being part of such an incredible endeavor is worth it.

Cons

Management styles, hours worked, and compensation all vary wildly among groups within engineering and throughout the company. Large expectations, little direction from managers, frequent changes of direction, and general hard work culture makes SpaceX not for everyone.

Explore other reviews about SpaceX

5.0
30 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very open and cooperative culture Can-do mindset Break-through mindset

Cons

Weak HR with weak processes to protect employees Always on survival mode culture Less of training and more of performance management Some managers use review process as a weapon to bring people in-line

1
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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