Google to SpaceX
Hey all. Short rambling about the importance of work mission. I went from Google to SpaceX. Currently on the Starlink team with my hands also on Starship, and a couple of other programs. I can’t overstate how important it is to be at least a little passionate about your jobs product and mission. At Google I was an L5 in MTV working with the AI/ML teams. Work was challenging and the pay and perks were fantastic, but I had zero actual drive to do stuff. Coworkers all wanted to sit on their ass, politics was a huge deal, and the product we made wasn’t stuff that exactly made any sort of impact real life. At the end of the day, it’s all just a company intending to gather as much data as possible, and make as much money as possible from that data and ads. Now at spacex (6 months in), I have to say that I can’t believe what I’ve been missing. Money is worse, objectively. But the product and mission is untouchable. Coworkers are all space nerds who are hungry to get shit done. At the absolute least, after a heavy week, I can say I improved something that will eventually make an actual impact to normal humans. You may now begin throwing rocks about WLB, Elon, TC, sir this is a Wendy’s, “who asked?”, I prefer money, etc etc TC: 310k TC at Google: 415k (5 years there) Totally YOE: 9
But why?
I forgot that one. And also because it’s a ton of fun to build SW and some products, see it in a simulation, and then see it actually get deployed to satellites and get launched into orbit.
OP, did you quit or you got layoff? Reason I'm asking, trying to understand if you actively made the decision to take a upfront pay-cut for fun work.
Love this take! Thanks for sharing
If you are passionate which is what spacex preys people on then that’s fine. Glad it’s working out for you
I feel like they prey on the uninformed, like most companies. It’s just that the uninformed who apply to SpaceX are insanely gung-ho. I negotiated the FUCK out of my offer. $310k is a fantastic TC for this area, and I make more than my director.
How on earth were you able to pull that TC from spacex as an engineer? Congratulations. I don’t think you are doing AI over there. So it is not really you are doing highly soecialized work there, you might even changed domain.
Did you have to relocate ? How is culture and people are different? Great to see engineering passion.
MTV to LA Culture at spacex is a lot more geeky and scrappy. For better or worse, it’s like a bunch of college redditors. They at least know when to be serious. It’s cool because even the most nerdy of compsci person usually interacts with manufacturing. They build the rockets on site, and it just hits different to *see* rockets built in front of you.
How is SpaceX helping people? As a person, I can honestly say that Google has improved my life. I can't say the same about SpaceX.
SpaceX is providing modern age reasonable speed internet to folks all over the place who have little or no options of any reasonable speed otherwise. So, if nothing else, rural and isolated areas have a reliable fast connection to the internet because of them.
Starlink is experimental at best right now. Not disagreeing with Op here, but @OP working on consumer facing products at big tech has the potential of your work affecting "Billions" of people!! Glad you love seeing your work get deployed on rockets! I love to see my shit run actual hardware as an embedded sw architect!
What’s your base salary?
Base @ 220k. I maxed out the senior payscale lol
Well done 👏 I bet you're so much happier and give it a few years those SpaceX RSUs will fill the gap with G easily.
Starlink is helping by bringing cat memes to poor countries
I'm glad to see new people still feel this way. At least for me the excitement is gone and probably left after maybe three years of working here (I've been handcuffed since then). Years ago when I joined the old guard at that time seemed to feel a lot like I do today. I think the lesson is it's important to be interested in your work and to move around if necessary.
why not wait till startlink IPO?
🫡🫡🫡 Don't worry about TC, your equity will grow x10 in reasonable timeframe
You’re dead on. It was weird at G to see my coworkers all trying to fill that fulfillment hole with random purchases and splurges. All the guys at spacex flex by just lounging at a pool or building engineering hobbyist crap on the side. Maybe it’s a SoCal vs NorCal thing though.
You get to build rockets and shit. Can’t complain. By the way, please elaborate on the code base and requirements to get a job at SpaceX.