6 ms·

The application forms are pretty ridiculous with theIr insistence on school/graduation dates (some reqs) and SAT/ACT scores (all). As a very experienced engine

The application forms are pretty ridiculous with theIr insistence on school/graduation dates (some reqs) and SAT/ACT scores (all). As a very experienced engineer, I can’t accept being judged on (historical) trivia.

mulcahey 6y ago
I would presume it depends on whom you're asking. E.g. Elon's stated multiple times that he believes requirements of degrees on many of Tesla's job postings to be "absurd"[0][1] [0] https://youtu.be/ywPqLCc9zBU?t=2733 https://youtu.be/ywPqLCc9zBU?t=2733 [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1208841343440568320?s=20 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1208841343440568320?s=20
- xiphias2 6y ago
  Having a degree or not is different from having a degree with a low or high GPA. Having a low GPA at a University is a worse signal for hard working person than having no University background.
  - dmix 6y ago
    Does anyone even care what your grades were beyond your first job?
    - pinewurst 6y ago
      Much less one’s college admission test scores - how do they signal a “hard working person” especially 20 years down the road?
      - xiphias2 6y ago
        Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance? I prefer investing in Tesla/SpaceX instead of working there, and leave working extra hard to young people who have more energy than me.
        adventured 6y ago
        > Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance? The initial comment by bfieidhbrjr already answered that very nicely: out of the desire to actually do something that is important re work. Important being subjective to the person in question obviously.
        Teever 6y ago
        A lot of people already work meaningless jobs with no work-life balance and they would find it to be a substantial improvement to work somewhere with meaningful work even without a proper work-life balance.
        dmix 6y ago
        Plenty of mega-corps are full of people who phone-it-in every day, you don't have to work demanding jobs. I personally love working hard, which is why I only work with startups, which tend to have a higher personal ROI and more meritocracy oriented.
rbanffy 6y ago
Same here. Understand they need to somehow weed through their applications. Experienced engineers are costly to assess and having a cheap test to remove the obvious negatives helps them at the cost of a few false ones. :-( I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass.
- skissane 6y ago
  > I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass. Unlike other "cheap tests", that one is imposed by US government regulations, not SpaceX's own decisions. I imagine SpaceX would be quite happy if ITAR was loosened, but I doubt that will happen. I honestly can't see why ITAR applies to citizens of friendly countries such as Canada or the UK. The point of ITAR is to stop unfriendly countries like China, Russia, Iran or North Korea getting access to technologies with sensitive military applications. The US trusts its closest allies in so many other ways (e.g. UKUSA "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing agreement, the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement under which the UK and US share nuclear weapon design information), why not in this?
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    A country is friendly until it isn't. I understand it's not a requirement imposed by SpaceX, but it also prevents them from getting a lot of applications they wouldn't be able to turn into hires.
    - skissane 6y ago
      > A country is friendly until it isn’t If the US can trust the UK with information on nuclear weapon designs and delivery systems, surely it can handle a few UK citizens working for SpaceX? In the unlikely event that the UK and US had some falling out, the US government could always order SpaceX to lay off UK citizen employees.
      - rbanffy 6y ago
        And what will you do with their knowledge?
xiphias2 6y ago
It's OK, you don't need to. There are many companies with different requirements, so you're just probably not a good fit.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
At least you can apply, you're American.
Robotbeat 6y ago
I would apply anyway. SpaceX judges more heavily on outside projects than academic credentials. The US citizen (and/or permanent resident) thing is probably not negotiable, though, because SpaceX does a lot of Nat Sec stuff.

mulcahey 6y ago

I would presume it depends on whom you're asking. E.g. Elon's stated multiple times that he believes requirements of degrees on many of Tesla's job postings to be "absurd"[0][1] [0] https://youtu.be/ywPqLCc9zBU?t=2733 https://youtu.be/ywPqLCc9zBU?t=2733 [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1208841343440568320?s=20 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1208841343440568320?s=20

xiphias2 6y ago
Having a degree or not is different from having a degree with a low or high GPA. Having a low GPA at a University is a worse signal for hard working person than having no University background.
- dmix 6y ago
  Does anyone even care what your grades were beyond your first job?
  - pinewurst 6y ago
    Much less one’s college admission test scores - how do they signal a “hard working person” especially 20 years down the road?
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance? I prefer investing in Tesla/SpaceX instead of working there, and leave working extra hard to young people who have more energy than me.
      - adventured 6y ago
        > Why would a person with 20 years of experience want to work for a company with no work-life balance? The initial comment by bfieidhbrjr already answered that very nicely: out of the desire to actually do something that is important re work. Important being subjective to the person in question obviously.
      - Teever 6y ago
        A lot of people already work meaningless jobs with no work-life balance and they would find it to be a substantial improvement to work somewhere with meaningful work even without a proper work-life balance.
      - dmix 6y ago
        Plenty of mega-corps are full of people who phone-it-in every day, you don't have to work demanding jobs. I personally love working hard, which is why I only work with startups, which tend to have a higher personal ROI and more meritocracy oriented.

rbanffy 6y ago

Same here. Understand they need to somehow weed through their applications. Experienced engineers are costly to assess and having a cheap test to remove the obvious negatives helps them at the cost of a few false ones. :-( I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass.

skissane 6y ago
> I'm also not a US citizen, so that's another cheap test I can't pass. Unlike other "cheap tests", that one is imposed by US government regulations, not SpaceX's own decisions. I imagine SpaceX would be quite happy if ITAR was loosened, but I doubt that will happen. I honestly can't see why ITAR applies to citizens of friendly countries such as Canada or the UK. The point of ITAR is to stop unfriendly countries like China, Russia, Iran or North Korea getting access to technologies with sensitive military applications. The US trusts its closest allies in so many other ways (e.g. UKUSA "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing agreement, the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement under which the UK and US share nuclear weapon design information), why not in this?
- rbanffy 6y ago
  A country is friendly until it isn't. I understand it's not a requirement imposed by SpaceX, but it also prevents them from getting a lot of applications they wouldn't be able to turn into hires.
  - skissane 6y ago
    > A country is friendly until it isn’t If the US can trust the UK with information on nuclear weapon designs and delivery systems, surely it can handle a few UK citizens working for SpaceX? In the unlikely event that the UK and US had some falling out, the US government could always order SpaceX to lay off UK citizen employees.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      And what will you do with their knowledge?

xiphias2 6y ago

It's OK, you don't need to. There are many companies with different requirements, so you're just probably not a good fit.

benhurmarcel 6y ago

At least you can apply, you're American.

Robotbeat 6y ago

I would apply anyway. SpaceX judges more heavily on outside projects than academic credentials. The US citizen (and/or permanent resident) thing is probably not negotiable, though, because SpaceX does a lot of Nat Sec stuff.