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Worked at SpaceX in LA on software. It was generally quite pleasant but you do put in a lot of hours. No one asks you to work overtime or work extra hours - it’

by ranman 8y ago

Worked at SpaceX in LA on software. It was generally quite pleasant but you do put in a lot of hours. No one asks you to work overtime or work extra hours - it’s just a fun environment and you like your coworkers so you stay at work longer than you should. Most people who were there longer than I was ended up finding a healthy work / life balance that they could sustain... I don’t think the new folks do this because they’re obsessed with learning as much as they can. I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of software while the world was changing around me... All in all? SpaceX was pretty wonderful and I don’t think anyone should judge employee happiness solely from hours worked. I was frequently encouraged to take some recharge time for me. This is just one data point and maybe we’re all only hearing the negative data points?

rubicon33 8y ago
> I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of software while the world was changing around me... Would love it if you could shed some more light on this point :) Was it that you were using an old programming language or something? It's hard for me to believe that the space industry didn't present some pretty awesome opportunities to use your brain. Sometimes building CRUD apps with the latest X framework is just too damn easy.
- starpilot 8y ago
  The thing with mission critical systems is boring == safe. So conservatism is endemic in aerospace where stakes are high.
- ranman 8y ago
  I wasn’t working on any code that was changing rapidly. I was basically making small tweaks to existing projects without the opportunity to refactor. The work being done by the whole company was fascinating... the small part of that I was working on was somewhat mind numbing. I kept doing some one off projects that were fun for a day or two but nothing that took multiple months or people to build and get into production. Nothing that I was personally super proud of. Others were in more substantial projects and probably enjoyed their work more.

by ranman 8y ago

rubicon33 8y ago

> I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of software while the world was changing around me... Would love it if you could shed some more light on this point :) Was it that you were using an old programming language or something? It's hard for me to believe that the space industry didn't present some pretty awesome opportunities to use your brain. Sometimes building CRUD apps with the latest X framework is just too damn easy.

starpilot 8y ago
The thing with mission critical systems is boring == safe. So conservatism is endemic in aerospace where stakes are high.
ranman 8y ago
I wasn’t working on any code that was changing rapidly. I was basically making small tweaks to existing projects without the opportunity to refactor. The work being done by the whole company was fascinating... the small part of that I was working on was somewhat mind numbing. I kept doing some one off projects that were fun for a day or two but nothing that took multiple months or people to build and get into production. Nothing that I was personally super proud of. Others were in more substantial projects and probably enjoyed their work more.