Rewarding but Difficult - Instrumentation Technician SpaceX Employee Review

4.0
Oct 18, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Never a dull moment, every project can be directly related to our product, which is launching rockets. It is easy to affect change; even on a technician level ideas and recommendations are taken up the chain and a lot of times end up being utilized. Coworkers are mainly highly motivated, intelligent individuals.

Cons

Pay is competetive but definitely on the lower end of industry standards. Long hours A large amount of managers got promoted because they were good at what they did before, not because they are good managers, which ends up created a less effective management team. The entire team has a lower level of experience than most engineering based companies, which allows for a lot of simple errors and trying to reinvent the wheel in areas which already have tried and true methods. At this point career advancement is very slow since there can only be so many "Leads" and they don't have lower sub- ratings. On the same note, it is a start-up mindset company which allows excellent personnel with lower levels of experience advance faster than other companies which is the primary reason the company has been successful thus far.

Explore other reviews about SpaceX

4.0
Apr 6, 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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