Worst engineering experience - Engineer SpaceX Employee Review

1.0
Jan 27, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Free ice cream, chips and coffee plus paid gym membership. Good quality lunch. For me there was no other Pros.

Cons

Once I got the job offer from SpaceX, I thought that would be the best work place for me but it turned out to be the worst so far. It may be cool for a recent graduate with no advanced degree and no family. There is absolutely no work life balance and everything is about how much money they can make out of you. Often you have to work 60-70 hrs a week and weekend with no compensation. and why is that? simply because they don't value their employees. They are spending a lot of money every single day , so employees are treated as robots and not human. The worst management team I have ever seen. The environment often looks like kindergarten where manager is chasing you to criticize you about something which he or she has no idea about. Many of engineering people at SpaceX have the illusion of they are very smart and it is because of them that SpaceX is getting attention these days despite their lack of deep technical knowledge. I graduated from one of the best schools with a PhD and I am pretty confident that you don't need to be smart to work at SpaceX, you just need to know how to please your manager. I am not saying good people are not there anymore, there are still few of them but from my view credit goes to early employees who developed Falcon 1 technology for SpaceX and then left the company. The rest is just typical everyday boring engineering work. There is nothing new, rocket technology is an old technology, people who have experience in this industry know what I am talking about. People not at SpaceX typically say Wow SpaceX is doing great , they are pushing boundaries of space exploration and looks like they are very proud of their business but with all respect from my point of view this is all illusion. Can you imagine how much money is wasted every single day at SpaceX because of lack of systems engineering, poor management and no documentation?

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5.0
May 30, 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
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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