SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.
OPERATIONS ENGINEER, SPACEPORT OPERATIONS
The city of Starbase, incorporated in 2025, is a critical component of SpaceX’s mission to make humanity multiplanetary, housing hundreds of employees and their families, and rapidly expanding. The Spaceport Facilities team manages the development and continuous improvement of residential housing, community amenities, schools, shared spaces, and related facilities. In this role, the Operations Engineer will support the team through data optimization, strategic planning, process optimization, and resource alignment to build and maintain effective residential facilities and city infrastructure.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Proactively identify operational challenges/inefficiencies within the Starbase Facilities organization, determine root cause, and develop appropriate solutions
- Improve data foundation by identifying deficiencies in current data capture
- Build and design data analyses, and extract actionable insights to inform decision-making across land development, maintenance, facilities, and transportation
- Partner with key stakeholders across SpaceX to solve facilities-related challenges
- Provide updates to cross-functional groups and recommend strategic solutions for the broader business
- Address top priorities of the Spaceport Operations function by monitoring and actioning impactful requests and by driving success on strategic projects
- Partner with software development resources
- Overseeing contract services across the site
- Review/manage/execute large contracts
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:
- Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline
- 2+ years of experience working in engineering, operations, manufacturing, or facilities management (internships or school projects do apply)
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:
- Experience driving cross-functional product/tool/process improvement efforts
- Experience in an operations engineering and/or process development role internal to SpaceX
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to work in fast-paced, high-stress environments
- Master’s degree in an engineering discipline
- Experience leading cross-functional groups
- Experience with Lean principles and structured problem-solving/project-management methodologies
- Experience building reporting tools using SQL, Python, Power BI, Tableau, or similar
- Demonstrated ability to communicate with and influence stakeholders in higher-level leadership
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:
- Must be able to work extended hours and weekends as needed
ITAR REQUIREMENTS:
- To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
SpaceX is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with SpaceX is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
Applicants wishing to view a copy of SpaceX’s Affirmative Action Plan for veterans and individuals with disabilities, or applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application/interview process should reach out to [email protected].
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline
- 2+ years of experience working in engineering, operations, manufacturing, or facilities management
SpaceX Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about SpaceX and has not been reviewed or approved by SpaceX.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are a core part of total compensation, with periodic company-run tender offers that create liquidity before any public listing. These mechanisms can make the equity component feel materially valuable in practice.
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Healthcare Strength — The package includes comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, with on-site clinics and health resources at major sites. This breadth of coverage is presented as a strong element of the offering.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Major locations feature on-site amenities such as fitness facilities, food/coffee, clinics, and other conveniences. These lifestyle perks enhance day-to-day value alongside cash and equity.
SpaceX Insights
What We Do
SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches the world’s most advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk to revolutionize space transportation, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary. SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in December 2010. The company made history again in May 2012 when its Dragon spacecraft attached to the International Space Station, exchanged cargo payloads, and returned safely to Earth — a technically challenging feat previously accomplished only by governments. Since then Dragon has delivered cargo to and from the space station multiple times, providing regular cargo resupply missions for NASA.
