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Software & IT

Site Reliability Engineer (Application Software)

SpaceX logoSpaceX$125,000–$195,000/yrHawthorne, CAPosted 2d ago
  • No experience required
  • US citizenship
  • ITAR / US person

How this pay compares

This posting states $125k–$195k a year. Open software engineer jobs in California post a median of $180k a year, the middle half $155k–$212k, across 449 jobs that state their pay, so this one is within the middle half of what they post.

Software engineers in California: pay by town and employer

About the job

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars. ## SITE RELIABILITY ENGINEER (APPLICATION SOFTWARE) The application software team is the central nervous system of SpaceX.

We create mission critical applications that are used throughout SpaceX to accelerate launch vehicle production and flight as well as systems that allow Starlink to grow into a worldwide fast, reliable Internet service. Our team is currently creating a platform and tooling that enables access to the compute, storage, and networking required to achieve those goals.

The ideal candidate has strong software engineering fundamentals and a passion for infrastructure: reliability, stability, proactive maintenance, and scalability. You understand the system before you change it, solve hard problems, communicate clearly with stakeholders and teammates, and take ownership of work that manufacturing depends on. Aerospace experience is not required.

We value smart, motivated, collaborative engineers who treat teammates with fairness, respect, and support, and who want to take full ownership of challenging problems to help make humanity multi-planetary. ## RESPONSIBILITIES - Deploy, upgrade, operate, maintain, and scale our suite of mission-critical products and services - Manage our underlying infrastructure as code and use modern observability tools to provide a complete picture of application health - Closely collaborate with software engineers to design and build highly operable, maintainable, and testable systems - Engage in and improve the entire software development lifecycle - from inception and design through deployment, operation, and continuous refinement - Practice sustainable incident response and blameless postmortems - Provide high-quality end-user support to vehicle software engineers - Participate in the team’s on-call rotation - Identify and eliminate performance bottlenecks using measurement and creative engineering ## BASIC QUALIFICATIONS - Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or an engineering discipline; OR 3+ years of professional experience in SRE or DevOps in lieu of a degree - Experience with Linux operating systems ## PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE - Programming experience in Python, C#, Go, JavaScript, etc - Experience with on premise compute, storage, and/or networking infrastructure in production - Experience with both container and virtualization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes, vSphere, QEMU, KVM, etc.) - Experience with databases and data modeling (Postgres, MySQL, ClickHouse, etc.) - Experience with infrastructure as code (IaC) tools for managing fleets of servers (Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, etc.) - Knowledge of the technologies that predate and underpin modern cloud infrastructure, with the ability to translate high-level developer experiences into specific implementations from first principles - Ability to work with mission-critical and sensitive systems with appropriate urgency and care - Ability to communicate effectively with customers, peers, and management in both formal and informal settings ## ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS - Must be able to work extended hours and weekends as needed - This role requires you to be onsite.

Remote and/or hybrid work will not be considered ## Pay Range Level 1: $125,000.00 - $160,000.00 Level 2: $145,000.00 - $195,000.00 Your actual level and base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge and skills, education, and experience. Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package at SpaceX.

You may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of company stock or long-term cash awards, as well as potential discretionary bonuses and the ability to purchase additional stock at a discount through an Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

You will also receive access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, paid parental leave, and various other discounts and perks. You may also accrue 3 weeks of paid vacation and will be eligible for 10 or more paid holidays per year.

Employees accrue paid sick leave pursuant to Company policy which satisfies or exceeds the accrual, carryover, and use requirements of the law. ## ITAR REQUIREMENTS - To conform to U.S.

Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here .

SpaceX is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with SpaceX is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

Applicants wishing to view a copy of SpaceX’s Affirmative Action Plan for veterans and individuals with disabilities, or applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application/interview process should reach out to EEOCompliance@spacex.com .

From SpaceX's job posting, checked 7 Nov 2026. The employer's own page is the final word on requirements and availability.

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About SpaceX

Designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.

Pay on its listings: 53.2% of its open jobs state an hourly rate

How it pays: Paid as an employee on SpaceX's own payroll (salaried or hourly, as each posting states).

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