SpaceX Reviews

Opportunities to work with highly intelligent people/ be the dumbest person in the room. Satisfaction of seeing your work make an impact on actual product. Getting to work around rockets and their components. Down to earth colleagues. Tons of opportunity for growth and learning. It is okay to not know everything here and need to learn how to do something new. People are not protective of their respective work areas. When major issues are identified, they seem to float to the top quickly and are disseminated to the wider company. Its okay to make mistakes, but they need to be identified and resolved. If you have a good idea, people are willing to try it out (the best idea wins). Subsidized food (can get a full blown lunch from $3 to $5) and the food is actually good. Management has worked to provide a work-life balance. I haven't experienced the horror stories that some people have shared on here regarding the brutal hours. I've been working 45 to 50 hours per week, but do not work directly for production. My manager stated his main concern is I'm getting my assigned tasks done and him seeing results. My impression is if you work directly for production, expect brutal hours as you will have hard/ ambitious deadlines to meet. The stock award has the potential to pay out big time if the company's trajectory stays on its current path. Hands off on getting work done. My manager assigns me work and trusts me to go out and make an impact with practically no supervision. I have freedom to attack problems as I see fit. The processes here are not set in stone. If something is wrong or there is a better way, things can get changed quickly. The culture is very open. If you want to/ know how to dig through SpaceX's systems, you have full access to everything and can dig through rocket component drawings, issues, etc. Flat organizational structure. There isn't many layers of management here and SpaceX doesn't have the bureaucratic inertia other major aerospace companies have. The benefits very good. The onsite medical and dental makes seeing the doctor or dentist incredibly convenient. There are a variety of other perks you get for working here that many other companies do not offer. The chance to be a part of something that is truly inspirational and fun. When you're employed here, the suspense of a launch and the exhilaration of success is fantastic. Year round summertime in Southern California.

* First, I feel I should comment on the work/life balance. I almost chose not to accept an offer at SpaceX because of the horror stories I'd read on Glassdoor about SpaceX grinding people's personal lives away. In the end, I chose to give it a try and quit in a few months if it was wrecking my life. I figured it was worth the risk, and I'm very glad I decided to try it. I've been at SpaceX almost two years now, and I have yet to experience (or witness) a major work/life balance problem. Most people in the Redmond office arrive around 9am and leave around 6pm. Most people (in software) in Hawthorne arrive around 10:30am and leave around 7pm. Everyone I know in the office is very clear that they will not do perma-crunch. Many people have families and just can't do it. Do crunches happen, and do we expect them when we're nearing completion of something? Absolutely, I've seen, and I expect crunches for short periods of time. Is it a culture of heroics, sacrifice, and permanent crunch mode and stress? Not that I've seen. If there were huge deadlines that were causing too much pressure for me to be happy in my personal life, do I feel I could set boundaries without jeopardizing my job (or respect inside the company)? Yes. * I love working in a place where everyone so strongly believes in what they're doing. I think it's a given that SpaceX will pay some amount less to a rockstar than they could make elsewhere (I don't know how much less, maybe 20%), but IMO it's worth the price of admission to get into some of the coolest and most impactful work on Earth. I see so many talented developers working on ad optimization, Tinder clones, boring middleware, etc. One could do that, or one could directly impact cutting-edge technology that take humans to the stars. Because pretty much everyone at SpaceX has consciously made this tradeoff, the company is full of some of the most down-to-Earth, curious, intelligent, and motivated people in the world. I've spent years in companies where people were making tons of money, stuffed to the gills, but they didn't really feel challenged or care much about what they were working on. They were only there for the money, and it was so lame and depressing. * Every day, I feel like I'm living in a sci-fi novel. There's so much cool technology here, and it feels like we're ushering in the future. * The work culture is generally professional and respectful * At the same time, things move quickly and meetings are informal and efficient. Disagreements tend to get resolved quickly, directly, and respectfully. * I'm constantly learning * There is freedom to branch out and take on whatever I want to (as long as I take care of prior commitments)