I've been passionate about space my whole life and got my bachelor's in Aerospace Engineering because of it. Decided to leave that career and start in SWE and am currently an AI/ML Engineer with a masters in CS and ML. I think working on a space project with AI would be a dream but I hear that the WLB/Pay is horrible. Since I am primarily concerned with money I'm thinking about going to somewhere like Citadel/Jane Street in NYC. Any thoughts?
Doesn’t hurt to apply to all of them. ML may demand greater pay than standard NASA/SpaceX positions. Also Citadel / 2sigma / JSC are difficult to get into.
Ya I heard that. What is the main difficulty? Is it getting an interview or passing once you have it?
"They pay way more than any other company" not true. They shit their pants on FAANG L6+ compensation and can barely match offers. There best pitch is "we are paying all cash", but then Netflix does that too and is much cooler and at least better WLB than quant.
I guess that's the government for you haha
You expressed in you passion in opening sentences. Then ended with you want to work for Jane Street... hahahha... We all kinda similar..
My first passion is money. My second passion is space, haha. I think that has to do with the fact that I'm kind of young and for now money is a big priority.
Yes, although you are super passionate you shouldn’t give 150% of your life to realize Elon’s dream!
They don't exactly generate a lot of revenue...
I'm over 300tc but a third is paper and I'm in top 1% of employees (edit: by comp), so it's not representative. I feel good about the stock long term, but would prefer liquidity.
Is recent space mission news motivating you?
Motivating me to make this post but I've thought about this for a long time, hence my background in Aerospace Engineering. Also have been thinking about it since I first switched to SWE.
I can't comment on NASA/Space X, but I also have a bachelors and masters in Aerospace, then decided to switch to ML because of the poooooor salaries for aerospace in the UK (salaries around 25k GBP per year are usual). So did a masters in computational statistics and machine learning, and now earn >$200K TC with 2-3 YoE, not in the US. Best choice ever. Plus aerospace industry just sucks, seriously.
You sound exactly like me haha. I really like both so I'd love to combine them, but I am happy with AI/ML so even if I chose the money route I'll still be happy.
Yea gonna be honest you posted two companies whose employees have goals at polar opposite ends of the spectrum
Do you mean SpaceX and NASA or SpaceX and Citadel? If you mean the latter than ya I feel like SpaceX is a passion project and Citadel is a money factory brrrrrrr
SpaceX and Citadel
Not going to lie after seeing the recent launch even I took a look at the SpaceX careers page lol
If you or anyone want to even apply DM me a LinkedIn and happy to refer you in. Worst case you come onsite and get to have a private tour (ehh maybe not with lockdown :)) Lot of ex google folk in software
Blue origin is bad, spoke with a recruiter there and pay is bad taking into account paper money.
I talked to one too. I couldn't believe how crap what they pitched me was. I made more as a new grad. They should know nobody from SpaceX is going to blue unless it's a huge increase.
How is spaceX btw? Good money?