[tjtrapp]

We're hiring for Starship and Starlink software teams: https://grnh.se/080f65d02us

It sounds like you're passionate about your work and that's an important quality. As gorgoiler points out, "Making a difference in the world is what counts."

If you'd like to help, consider applying! :)

[pinewurst]

The application forms are pretty ridiculous with theIr insistence on school/graduation dates (some reqs) and SAT/ACT scores (all).

As a very experienced engineer, I can’t accept being judged on (historical) trivia.

[benhurmarcel]

At least you can apply, you're American.

[rbanffy]

Same here. Understand they need to somehow weed through their applications. Experienced engineers are costly to assess and having a cheap test to remove the obvious negatives helps them at the cost of a few false ones. :-(

I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass.

[skissane]

> I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass.

Unlike other "cheap tests", that one is imposed by US government regulations, not SpaceX's own decisions.

I imagine SpaceX would be quite happy if ITAR was loosened, but I doubt that will happen.

I honestly can't see why ITAR applies to citizens of friendly countries such as Canada or the UK. The point of ITAR is to stop unfriendly countries like China, Russia, Iran or North Korea getting access to technologies with sensitive military applications. The US trusts its closest allies in so many other ways (e.g. UKUSA "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing agreement, the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement under which the UK and US share nuclear weapon design information), why not in this?

[Teever]

The ulterior motive to ITAR is protectionism.

[rbanffy]

A country is friendly until it isn't. I understand it's not a requirement imposed by SpaceX, but it also prevents them from getting a lot of applications they wouldn't be able to turn into hires.

[skissane]

> A country is friendly until it isn’t

If the US can trust the UK with information on nuclear weapon designs and delivery systems, surely it can handle a few UK citizens working for SpaceX?

In the unlikely event that the UK and US had some falling out, the US government could always order SpaceX to lay off UK citizen employees.

[garmaine]

> If the US can trust the UK with information on nuclear weapon designs and delivery systems.

Bad example. The soviets got the bomb because of British spies in the Manhattan project. After that, there was very little collaboration to this day.

[rbanffy]

And what will you do with their knowledge?

[inopinatus]

I've found that all really effective hiring funnels are biased for type 1 errors at the start and type 2 errors later on.

Filtering on inane academic requirements up front is the exact opposite, and you end up rejecting half the real talent pool.

[mulcahey]

I would presume it depends on whom you're asking. E.g. Elon's stated multiple times that he believes requirements of degrees on many of Tesla's job postings to be "absurd"[0][1]

[0] https://youtu.be/ywPqLCc9zBU?t=2733

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1208841343440568320?s=20

[xiphias2]

Having a degree or not is different from having a degree with a low or high GPA. Having a low GPA at a University is a worse signal for hard working person than having no University background.

[dmix]

Does anyone even care what your grades were beyond your first job?

[pinewurst]

Much less one’s college admission test scores - how do they signal a “hard working person” especially 20 years down the road?

[xiphias2]

Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance?

I prefer investing in Tesla/SpaceX instead of working there, and leave working extra hard to young people who have more energy than me.

[Robotbeat]

I would apply anyway. SpaceX judges more heavily on outside projects than academic credentials.

The US citizen (and/or permanent resident) thing is probably not negotiable, though, because SpaceX does a lot of Nat Sec stuff.

[xiphias2]

It's OK, you don't need to. There are many companies with different requirements, so you're just probably not a good fit.

[client4]

Y'all looking for Telco people for the northern tier of the US ground stations? North Dakota is a hard place to get 100Gs wavelengths ;)

[damon-]

TJ, I'd like to apply for supply chain. Any expertise there?

I don't work overtime and I'm not a fan of Thai food

[h3rsko]

My dream is to work for spaceX, but I'm NY. Do you his have remote teams or a NY office?

[0xffff2]

I find it completely baffling that it's your dream to work for SpaceX but you're unwilling to relocate? I'm stuck in the bay area (which I absolutely despise) because of my job, but I get to write flight software for spacecraft so I deal with it.

[cosmotron]

0xffff2, you yourself just said, "I'm stuck in <location> because of <reason>." It can't be that baffling to think that h3rsko is also stuck (e.g. because of a family).

[0xffff2]

Yes, that's because I was using the word "stuck" metaphorically. I choose to be stuck because I actually find the benefits of being stuck to outweigh the costs. If I lost my job it probably wouldn't take me 24 hours to pack my shit and be gone. But as long as I'm here getting to do what I want to do I stay.

If you can't figure out how to move to a different state to pursue a dream, it's not much of a dream.

[jessriedel]

Hopefully tjtrapp can give you more details, but I have a friend who joined SpaceX as a software developer and they are fully remote if they want to be for the foreseeable future.

[0xffff2]

How's the work/life balance these days? Are 60-80 hour work weeks still the norm?

[walrus01]

Is the starlink software team based in Redmond or Hawthorne?

[mulcahey]

There are Starlink software positions available at both locations.

For example, here is a web development position in Hawthorne: https://boards.greenhouse.io/spacex/jobs/4682610002?gh_jid=4...

And a network position in Redmond: https://boards.greenhouse.io/spacex/jobs/4770694002?gh_jid=4...

Here is the job board for all software positions: https://www.spacex.com/careers/index.html?department=Softwar...

[Allower]

Sounds cool, but I value my sleep ;-)