Elon Musk opens more than 500 job posts to qualified individuals to join SpaceX in its ultimate quest to establish a human settlement on Mars.
SpaceX is hiring primarily in the engineering, manufacturing, and operations departments. Most of the jobs call for engineers, technicians, managers, supervisors, as well as security personnel, writers, editors, and baristas.
As of June 5, 542 job slots are open to join the company's 6,000-strong workforce, according to a recent Federal Communications Commission filing.
"SpaceX is like Special Forces. We do the missions that others think are impossible. We have goals that are absurdly ambitious by any reasonable standard, but we're going to make them happen. We have the potential here at SpaceX to have an incredible effect on the future of humanity and life itself," said SpaceX founder Musk on the company's careers page.
Why Is SpaceX Hiring More People?
SpaceX's rockets accounted for 60 percent of the global launches last year. However, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell said the flight manifest for 2019 is 10 launches fewer than this year.
An analysis by investor data website Thinknum shows that although the company almost halted recruitment in September 2017, it shows no signs of slowing for this year.
The majority of the open jobs are related to engineering, which indicates that Musk is gearing up for the final iteration of the Falcon 9 rocket called Block 5.
SpaceX also invested at least $500 million into building the gigantic Falcon Heavy rocket, whose power is equivalent to three Falcon 9 rockets combined into one system. Its most ambitious project — the Big Falcon Rocket or BFR — is preparing for its first launch to Mars in 2022. The first round of short test launch is expected to happen sometime next year.
Musk said the BFR would replace everything that SpaceX has created so far. Its total reusability feature means that it will cost the company and their clients little amount for any payload size.
"We want to have one system, one booster and ship, which replaces Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon. If we can do that, then all the resources that are used for Falcon 9, Heavy, and Dragon can be applied to this system," Musk said in reference to the other rockets.
Currently, it costs about $10 billion to bring one person to Mars. Musk's ambition is to reduce it to under $200,000 with the help of rockets such as BFR.
What It Takes To Join SpaceX?
Software engineers are integral in SpaceX's day-to-day operations. They create codes that are used in rockets and spacecraft as well as codes that support the rocket design and manufacturing processes. In a Reddit thread, SpaceX engineers disclosed the specific skills that SpaceX needs from its engineers.
Most of the software engineers have a degree in computer science, although some have backgrounds in electrical engineering, math, physics, and computer engineering. A related master's degree is not necessary, but it can help.
Flight software engineers must possess knowledge in C++, while those in the enterprise information systems should know how to work on C# or Front End. The launch engineering team should be knowledgeable of the LabVIEW system, and engineers from all three departments should have great algorithm or data structure knowledge.
