Full-Time
Automation Engineer
Blades and Vanes Foundry
SpaceX
10,001+ employees
Designs, manufactures, and launches rockets
No salary listed
No H1B Sponsorship
Bastrop, TX, USA
In Person
Travel of up to 10% is required.
Bachelor's
 Automotive Service & Repair (1) |
|---|
Get referred to SpaceX
See people who can refer or advise you
- A bachelor's degree in an engineering, physics, or computer science discipline.
- At least 1 year of experience designing and commissioning automation and control systems for industrial applications.
- Ability to work extended hours and weekends as needed to support critical milestones.
- Must be willing to travel up to 10%.
- Integrate electromechanical and mechatronic systems with critical investment casting equipment, including wax injectors, ceramic injectors, preheating, melting, and controlled solidification furnaces.
- Design and develop manufacturing data systems from concept to production, analyze equipment KPI trends, conduct reliability analysis, and create scalable systems for production output, quality inspection, real-time process optimization, and maintenance strategies to enhance equipment uptime and reliability.
- Implement solutions for data collection and storage using Python and SQL to interface with MES and production databases, while incorporating sensor data for real-time condition monitoring and fault prediction.
- Create and optimize HMI, SCADA, and MES interfaces; conduct in-house technology exploration; and integrate predictive analytics for equipment health monitoring.
- Participate in initial equipment conceptual development and balance product specifications, process requirements, layout complexity, cost, and lead-time limits.
- Lay out new industrial electrical control panels compliant with NFPA 79, NEC, and UL 508A, and create electrical, pneumatic, and fluid schematics.
- Architect, write, and debug PLC code that is organized, structured, documented, maintainable, and reusable for manufacturing applications.
- Implement ANSI/RIA 15.06- and OSHA-compliant control-reliable safety systems for safeguarding robots, gantries, conveyors, and other manufacturing equipment.
- Select and size electrical and electromechanical components such as servo motors and controllers.
- Manage electrical cabinet builds, field wiring, and pneumatic and fluid plumbing.
- Proficiency in industrial systems, including configuring control networks such as Ethernet/IP, PROFINET, BACnet, and serial communication.
- Experience with multiple PLC systems, including Siemens, Allen-Bradley, and Beckhoff.
- Experience programming ABB mechatronic systems.
- Experience creating electrical schematics with ePLAN for circuits and power distribution.
- Exposure to production machinery, industrial sensors, and equipment such as vision systems, dispense systems, temperature controllers, laser distance sensors, and nut runners.
- Hands-on manufacturing experience solving complex problems with data and customized solutions, with results improving equipment reliability and reducing downtime.
- Proficiency in Python and SQL for analyzing sensor data, equipment reliability analysis, and predictive modeling.
- Hands-on experience troubleshooting and repairing electromechanical devices using hand tools, diagnostic tools such as multimeters and vibration analyzers, and condition-based monitoring techniques.
- Ability to resolve conflict objectively within a large group.
- Experience in fast-paced iterative design and manufacturing environments.
- Experience solving complex problems with little to no supervision, independently or as a member of an integrated team.
SpaceX designs, builds, and launches rockets and spacecraft for government and commercial customers, using reusable first stages to cut costs. Its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy recover their boosters to enable rapid reuse, while Dragon transports cargo and crew to the International Space Station. Starlink operates a satellite internet constellation to provide global broadband coverage. It earns revenue from launches and merchandise, with the broader goal of making space travel cheaper and, over time, enabling human life on other planets and expanding global internet access.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Starbase, Texas
Founded
2002
Get referred to SpaceX
See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Q2 2026 revenue hit $7.8 billion, up 92% year over year.
- NASA selected SpaceX Starlink laser terminals for Artemis III imagery on July 16, 2026.
- SpaceX won over $6 billion in multi-year Starshield contracts and $14.1 billion cloud sales.
What critics are saying
- FAA delays push Starship licensing past mid-September toward late November 2026.
- May 2026 booster mishap triggered FAA investigation; next orbital flight remains unproven.
- Starlink ARPU fell 22%, signaling pricing pressure and dependence on lower-priced international growth.
What makes SpaceX unique
- Starlink doubled to 12 million subscribers by Q2 2026.
- Starship V3 flew twice in 2026, pushing fully reusable heavy-lift capability.
- SpaceX vertical integration spans rockets, satellites, terminals, AI compute, and government contracts.
Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?
Benefits
Benefits and Perks - Our employees’ well-being is important to us and essential to our capacity to do extraordinary things. We offer a wide variety of programs to support the health, wellness, and financial security of our employees and their families.
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -2%1 year growth
↓ -3%2 year growth
↓ -2%Elon Musk has endorsed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's call for slower AI development, whilst noting he has been warning about AI risks since 2023. Musk previously stated that AGI poses greater risks than nuclear weapons. Despite his concerns, Musk has invested heavily in AI through SpaceX's AI division and data centres, plus Tesla's robotaxis and Optimus robots. SpaceX has secured AI compute deals worth $45.7 billion in annual recurring revenue for December, with a target of $100 billion by year-end. Amodei advocates for third-party evaluators to assess AI models and safety practices at frontier AI companies. Anthropic's IPO filing is expected shortly, whilst OpenAI has pushed its IPO to 2027, citing safety concerns.
SpaceX is preparing to turn its Starship rocket into a revenue generator for the first time, creating a strategic dilemma between expanding its lucrative Starlink business and meeting NASA's lunar mission requirements. CFO Bret Johnsen confirmed that Flight 14 will carry production Starlink V3 satellites, marking Starship's first revenue-generating flight. Starlink generated $11.4 billion in revenue last year, more than double the roughly $4.3 billion value of SpaceX's NASA lunar contracts. However, NASA needs SpaceX to demonstrate orbital refuelling capabilities and extended spaceflight operations before returning humans to the Moon. Bloomberg reported that a single Moon mission could require a dozen or more refuelling launches. SpaceX has warned investors it may prioritise its own payloads over government missions, though roughly a fifth of its revenue comes from US government contracts. NASA is targeting a lunar landing in early 2028.
Millennium Management, led by billionaire Israel "Izzy" Englander, recently increased its AbbVie stake by more than double to 1.5 million shares worth around $380 million. The fund also took a new position in SpaceX, purchasing 17.6 million shares valued at nearly $3 billion. AbbVie, a diversified pharmaceutical company, offers products treating chronic conditions and cancers. Its key drugs Skyrizi and Rinvoq generated $9.99 billion and $4.64 billion respectively in the first half of 2026. The company pays a dividend yield of 2.7%, with its annual dividend growing from $2.28 in 2016 to $6.83 currently. SpaceX leads in space launches and satellite communications through Starlink. The company reported 92% year-over-year revenue growth to $7.8 billion in the second quarter.
SpaceX has secured a major data centre deal worth $1.11 billion monthly, starting 1 December, CFO Bret Johnsen told a Goldman Sachs conference on Thursday. The customer remains undisclosed. The agreement adds to existing contracts with Google and Anthropic for capacity at SpaceX's Colossus data centres in Mississippi and Tennessee. Anthropic pays $1.25 billion monthly through May 2029, whilst Google's June deal is worth $920 million monthly. Johnsen said the new deal strengthens his conviction that SpaceX will reach $100 billion in annual recurring revenue by year-end. The company reported $6.7 billion in cloud services revenue during the third quarter's opening weeks. SpaceX acquired significant unused data centre capacity when it merged with Elon Musk's AI startup xAI in February.
SpaceX's undisclosed $13.3B tenant: who is the compute landlord's largest new customer? A single, unnamed customer is paying $1.11 billion a month for SpaceX AI compute starting December - the second-largest deal in the portfolio. The identity determines whether the compute landlord thesis is consolidating or fragmenting. Lena Park Forkast mind | 2026-09-11 3:25 AM PDT SpaceX is currently locking in $1.11 billion in monthly revenue from a single, undisclosed customer, a move that pushes the company's annualized run rate for AI compute hosting to approximately $41 billion. This latest contract, confirmed by CFO Bret Johnsen at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference on September 10, 2026, places SpaceX firmly at the center of the compute landlord thesis - but with a critical blind spot at the core of its newest revenue stream. During the event, Johnsen stated: "Earlier this month, we closed another hosting deal... that translates into about $1.11 billion a month starting December 1st of this year, which is another roughly $13 billion of ARR that starts December 1st of this year." This new agreement is the fourth pillar in a massive infrastructure portfolio. The current breakdown includes Anthropic, contributing roughly $1.25 billion per month at the Colossus Memphis facility; Google, which begins a $920 million monthly commitment in October; and Reflection AI, adding $150 million per month. Combined, these four deals represent a staggering $3.43 billion in monthly revenue, or roughly $41 billion in annualized run rate. This trajectory supports Elon Musk's stated goal of reaching $100 billion in ARR by the end of 2026, a target he described by noting, "$100 billion ARR in December is not a question mark. That's what we would achieve if we basically did nothing." According to CNBC's reporting on the Q2 earnings call, this projection assumes closure of the $60 billion Cursor acquisition. The identity of the latest $13.3 billion-a-year customer remains a mystery, though industry observers are focused on three primary scenarios. The first is OpenAI, which is currently building the Jalapeno chip and maintains a complex relationship with SpaceX following the Cursor deal - including OpenAI's August 28 notice to wind down its Cursor model-supply contract by November 12. The second is Microsoft, which previously evaluated a bid for Cursor but ultimately declined. The third possibility is a new entrant seeking to secure massive-scale agentic capacity. Each scenario carries distinct implications for the compute landlord thesis, ranging from further vertical integration to a broader commoditization of high-end silicon.