Never Boring, Always a challenge - Mechanical Design Engineer SpaceX Employee Review

5.0
Oct 17, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

--- Great People; Coworkers are intelligent, thoughtful, generous with their knowledge, and generally a pleasure to be around. --- Great Projects; the volume and breadth of new and interesting Design, Engineering, and Production projects in work and on the calendar present a constant flow of interesting and challenging things to work on.

Cons

--- Somewhat unclear performance and time-commitment expectations; the expectations for performance, and total time committed, with respect to individual projects are mostly left to individuals to balance. For some people this works well and for some, not so well.

Explore other reviews about SpaceX

5.0
Jul 3, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Learn alot, helpful people, cool mission

Cons

long hours, ambiguous, high turn over

5.0
Jun 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* **Unmatched Mission & Impact:** You are literally working on rockets and spacecraft. The cool factor is 10/10. * **Brilliant Coworkers:** You will be surrounded by some of the smartest, most driven engineers in the world. * **Insane Career Growth:** SpaceX on your resume is a golden ticket. You will learn more here in 3 months than in 3 years at a normal company. * **Hands-on Experience:** They actually trust interns with real, critical hardware. No boring coffee-fetching tasks.

Cons

**Cons:** * **Zero Work-Life Balance:** 70-80 hours a week is the norm, not the exception. Say goodbye to your social life and sleep. * **Extreme Burnout:** The "hustle culture" is toxic. You are expected to treat the company as your entire life. * **Mediocre Pay:** The hourly pay is average, especially when you factor in the insane hours and the high cost of living in LA/Hawthorne. * **Chaotic Management:** Decisions can change overnight based on whatever Elon Musk tweets or feels like doing that morning.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All