Space Jobs for Materials Engineers

Showing the 66 roles whose requirements we read, every country. See every role

Pay by specialty

Every specialty gets its typical band from its own open roles, computed by the same method as the rest of the site (the 25th percentile of what roles pay (the middle of each posted range, as a year's pay: an hourly rate counts at 2,080 hours, 40 a week for 52 weeks) to the 90th-percentile posted top). A specialty is listed once three or more distinct rates have been posted.

What the roles ask for

Drawn from the requirement lines of 66 out of 92 open roles for materials engineers and chemists, the same lines each role's pop-up quotes from its posting. Each role is counted once, at the lowest degree it will accept.

• Name years of experience54
• Set a residency or work-authorization condition12
• Name u.S. person status (ITAR or EAR)5
• Ask for a professional license1
• Ask for a certification1
• Name a security clearance1

Where a posting states years of experience, the median ask is 5 years.

Who hires materials engineers and chemists in the space industry

Employer	Open roles	Pay stated
Turion Space	1	$150k–$200k/yr
Inversion Space	2	$175k–$244k/yr
Xona Space Systems	1	$173k–$197k/yr
Apex	4	$121k–$225k/yr
Stoke Space	1	$129k–$252k/yr
Firefly Aerospace	1	Not stated
Blue Origin	26	Not stated
Axiom Space	3	Not stated
The Exploration Company	1	Not stated
SpaceX	38	$100k–$220k/yr
AST SpaceMobile	1	Not stated
Voyager Technologies	2	$56.2k–$105k/yr
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory	1	$119k–$143k/yr
Relativity Space	8	$90k–$150k/yr
Vast	2	$86.1k–$123k/yr

Sorted by the expected value of an application (acceptance odds times posted pay). A referral agreement, if an employer has one, can raise it in this order but never changes the salary it offers.

Where these roles are posted

The US states with the most open roles for materials engineers and chemists, and the roles posted for a single country. A place name leads to its own page, and a country's count lists the matching roles.

What our research measures about mechanical work

Read from the open postings on 2026-10-29 by our space industry research, rebuilt every day. Every figure opens the row of the report it comes from.

• Who is hiring793 open roles (9.7% of the space roles we read) at 37 employers, 154 of them posted in the last 30 days.
• Where the jobs are4.9% of these roles are remote; the rest are on-site or hybrid.
• Who can apply78.6% of the postings are open only to US persons or US citizens, and 13.7% name a security clearance.
• Skills and toolsThe skills its postings name most: Finite element analysis (46%), Ansys (38%) and GD&T (ASME Y14.5) (36%).
• Degrees and experience1.3% of the postings take a high school diploma or an associate's degree, 32.9% name a master's or PhD, and they ask for a median of 5 years of experience at the least.
• Pay transparency42.1% of the postings state their pay, at a median $132,000 a year.
• Internships and entry level77 open roles are for someone starting out (9.7% of its open roles).
• Shifts, weekends and travel19.4% of the postings ask for weekend work, 15.3% for overtime or extended hours, and 0.9% name an evening, night or rotating shift.