When we last checked in, SpaceX was busy gearing up for manned missions to space stations and ultimately to Mars. Before that, they were hiring up teams for build the Big Falcon Rocket. And before that, they had cooled off hiring for Starlink, a space-based broadband satellite network that would provide the private agency with funding for its larger efforts.
But all this is based on the premise that we've been tracking hiring data for SpaceX for some time. This is true — in fact, we've been tracking SpaceX hiring patterns since mid-2016. At that time, the vast majority of open SpaceX positions were at its Hawthorne, CA headquarters.
Since then, however, hiring has come and gone at different locations, and those patterns over time tell a story of their own.
The most cumulative listings have indeed been at SpaceX's Hawthorne headquarters. The chart below indicates the number of times each location has had an opening listed on any date since mid-2016. This means that many positions, if left unfilled, can appear multiple times (in other words, there haven't been 105,637 openings at Hawthorne. Rather, there have been 105,637 instances of jobs listed at Hawthorne over time).
|
City |
Title (Count) |
|---|---|
|
Hawthorne |
203,336 |
|
Redmond |
48,326 |
|
Cape Canaveral |
17,679 |
|
McGregor |
12,179 |
|
Irvine |
9,341 |
|
Vandenberg AFB |
5,919 |
|
Vandenberg |
4,246 |
|
Seattle |
3,013 |
|
Washington |
1,190 |
|
San Francisco |
465 |
|
Placentia |
425 |
|
Palo Alto |
249 |
|
Chicago |
122 |
|
Brownsville |
101 |
|
Boston |
11 |
|
Houston |
1 |
For reference — and we'll leave the deep analysis to the rocket scientists of the world — Hawthorne serves as both the SpaceX headquarters as well as company's executive office space, mission control, and more recently vehicle manufacturing facilities. It was original built by Northrop Corporation to create Boeing 747 fuselages.
The Redmond operation, where SpaceX has listed the second-most positions, is reportedly where the company was creating its aforementioned Starlink satellite network. Interestingly, hiring there virtually stopped earlier this summer, as we reported.
Cape Canaveral serves as an orbital launch site for Falcon 9 but is apparently not capable of supporting Falcon Heavy launches (according to Wikipedia which, of course, is not always right). Hiring here has remained somewhat steady, as it also serves as a Falcon 9 first-stage landing area.
The McGregor, Texas location operates as SpaceX's Rocket Development and Test Facility, where — as you may guess — the company tests rocket engines. The facility was purchased from Beal Aerospace and has since been expanded with purchases of nearby land. Given the expansion here, we expect hiring to tick up in Texas.
The Vandenberg SpaceX location is primarily the Vandenberg Air Force Space Launch Complex 4 East, which has been used to launch Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Hiring here has cooled off a bit, at least of late.
As a sidenote, most of the Washington, DC positions were for summer internships outside of a single listing for Corporate Counsel.
It is estimated that there are around 7,000 SpaceX employees total. Roughly 6,000 people have SpaceX listed as an employer on LinkedIn: