Can you help me get hired at SpaceX?

October 14, 2012 8:14 AM

Can you help me get hired at SpaceX?

SpaceX, a company for whom I have a great respect and admiration, is hiring a Lead Web Developer in Hawthorn, CA.

You can find it here.

I have a great résumé, great work history, great experience, but I would really like to do something extra to get their attention and have my application rise to the top.

So I'm asking the community - can you help?! Any and all ideas are on the table!

posted by mistermc to work & money (9 answers total)

Try making friends with someone who works there (even if that is just on twitter) and get them to submit your resume for you.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 8:24 AM on October 14, 2012

Yeah, about the only advice I could give to rise above the rest of the applicants is get to know someone that works there. Getting an introduction through a connection at the company would put you miles ahead of everyone else applying.
posted by mathowie at 9:44 AM on October 14, 2012

The way to do this is by networking with people and meeting someone who works at Spacex. Twitter and LinkedIn are fine tools in their own right but don't think that those virtual connections will elevate you over a candidate who is personally known to someone in the company. View twitter and LinkedIn as adjuncts to getting to know people at the company.
posted by dfriedman at 10:20 AM on October 14, 2012

[It's okay to ask for ideas, OP, but please do not post people's contact info or social media accounts here.]
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:31 AM on October 14, 2012

Have you been active in L-5, NSS, SFS, Planetary Society etc? If so, then you are probably only 2 degrees away from a current employee.
How much of a rocket scientist/engineer are you? Have you at least been following the Arocket mailing list? Read The Rocket Company?
IMHO the biggest impression could be made by making a web game mission control/post-mortem version of Kerbal Space to show that you can do what the job is asking, and that you would be a good fit for the culture.
posted by anon4now at 10:34 AM on October 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

In the academic world, the right approach to a cold-call email is:

1) Showing familiarity with a person's work. (In academia this means reading their publications.)
2) Asking intelligent questions about their work.
3) Describing the elements of your background that show that you are well-prepared to work for them.

1, 2 and 3 need to be accomplished in as few words as possible, because it's email.

I imagine a similar approach will work in industry because they flatter the person (everyone is excited about other people engaging with their work) and they give the person the information they need to make them think about working with you (that you are a sharp, well-informed potential colleague.)
posted by BrashTech at 10:34 AM on October 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

I know that they love engineers who have worked on a Formula SAE team in college. I've had friends that interviewed and they basically only cared about that experience.

Maybe you could volunteer to mentor some undergrads at a local college doing FSAE (they usually need someone code savvy to do their fuel mapping and stuff, right?)...
posted by rocket_johnny at 1:09 PM on October 14, 2012

To be clear, I'm interested in the web developer position. I'm not a systems engineer or rocket engineer. :/
posted by mistermc at 1:12 PM on October 14, 2012

You're not an engineer, but in this case, you'll be competing with other web developers who have some intense (and demonstrable) interest in space exploration. Having worked in some very specialized industries, I'm going to assume they'll be looking for people most in tune with the company's focus. If there's nothing about you that clearly says "space geek" already, think about how to make it obvious why you'd be specifically excited to work with them and a specifically great fit for their culture.
posted by kalapierson at 1:05 AM on October 15, 2012 [1 favorite]