Joined during a real inflection point, here’s why I took the bet
Pros
Joined a few months ago, right as Dan Jablonsky (ex-Maxar, ex-Ursa Major) took over as CEO and the company closed a $550M Series C at an $8B valuation. That combination of new operational leadership plus fresh capital is rare to walk into, and you can feel the shift toward more disciplined execution already. The mission itself is the real draw: Dream Chaser, the LIFE habitat, Orbital Reef, national security space work. The company is pushing hard on modern AI tooling across engineering, from code assistance to workflow automation, so you’re not fighting decade-old tooling to get things done. And unlike the primes, the company is still small enough that an individual engineer can move a program forward, not just a ticket queue. If you want your work to be traceable to a launch, this is one of the few places left where that’s true.
Cons
This is a company mid-transition: post-spinoff, post-CEO-change, scaling fast, so process and communication are still catching up to ambition. Expect some rough edges: unclear ownership on cross-team work, evolving standards, and the pace that comes with a fast-growing R&D shop. If you need a fully mature org chart and buttoned-up process on day one, wait a year or two.
