Fulfilling, rewarding but requires some sacrifices - Mechanical Engineer SpaceX Employee Review

4.0
Oct 6, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Every day you go to work and work with some of the smartest but also hard working, do-anything-to-get-to-mars coworkers you can find anywhere. Every day you are pushed to do things faster, cheaper, but still smarter than anyone has ever done them before. The challenge is addicting and something you will find pretty much nowhere else. Young company full of energy and coworkers that will inspire and motivate you. Any top engineer's dream place to work. Also, great healthcare, gym reimbursement, food subsidies, and stock compensation. For hourly employees, overtime opportunities abound and mean you can make top dollar if you're willing to put in the hours.

Cons

Base pay is lower than it is at a lot of competitors for employees at SpaceX for several years (starting salaries are quite competitive). Salaried employees end up working a ridiculous amount of hours in many cases. I have worked for weeks on end between 70 and 85 hours, though I would say on average employees mostly work between 50 and 60 hours, which is quite typical for a tech company. It is very hard to afford to live in southern california and have a family with the salary and work hours at SpaceX. Definitely hard to retain employees after 5 years given that pay is often far less than competitors if you are salaried and work/life balance can be very tough. Despite all of the above, which can be fixed as time goes on, you will not find a more exciting or interesting company to work for. Every year is more exciting, pushing the impossible and doing what most others believed would not happen in their lifetimes. Sometimes, doing incredible work requires sacrifice. If you believe in the mission, the hard work can be worth it, and if you are a valuable employee you can learn to be efficient and improve your work/life balance to be quite reasonable. If you hate southern california, we have exciting work happening in Seattle, Texas, Vandenberg AFB (Santa Barbara area), Cape Canaveral FL, and washington DC.

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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