
Sr. Supplier Development Engineer (Starlink)
SpaceX · Bastrop, TX
- Level
- Senior
- Team
- Quality
- Travel
- 50%
- Degree
- Required
- Experience asked
- 8+ years
- Industry
- Aerospace & defense
- Posted
- 2 days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A senior quality role at SpaceX (aerospace & defense) in Bastrop, TX. Own hardware from selection to scale for Starlink consumer, gateway, satellite, or datacenter products.
- They ask for
- 8+ years · degree required
- Tools it names
- Root cause, SPC, FMEA, Control plans, MSA / Gage R&R, DOE
- Day to day
- about 50% travel
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
How this role compares
Against 69 other live quality postings in Texas.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- More than usual (8+ vs 3+)
Typical $90k–$120k, from 19 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 3+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Root cause 69%
- Lean 40%
- Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 40%
- New product launch 39%
- ✓ FMEA 37%
- Six Sigma 31%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Quality team at SpaceX
We found 2 people at this company and state: 2 on the team, plus 1 likely hiring manager. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓
- 2
Send a short, curious note
One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.
Write to Timothy → (free) - 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- Which standards drive the work here: ISO 13485, IATF 16949, AS9100?
- How much of the job is customer complaints versus prevention?
- The posting says about 50% travel. Between which sites?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
Apply with someone vouching for you
If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: SpaceX in Bastrop
83 other open roles at this site · 2 people we found on the quality team.
- Lead Operations Engineer · Production · Manager
- PECVD Process Engineer, Solar Cells (Starlink) · Process
- Facilities Engineer (Starlink) · Reliability
- Sourcing Specialist, OPEX (Starlink) · Lean / CI · Specialist
- Automation Engineer, Blades and Vanes Foundry · Controls
- Sr. Automation Engineer, Blades and Vanes Foundry · Controls · Senior
Full description from SpaceXAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Responsibilities
- ◆Own hardware from selection to scale for Starlink consumer, gateway, satellite, or datacenter products. Technology choice, supplier choice, process choice, equipment, yield, cost, schedule, and field performance sit with you.
- ◆Select suppliers who can build at the quality and rate the program needs, and develop them until the process is capable. Change the supplier when the technical path is not there.
- ◆Choose the manufacturing process and the equipment. Define the process window, the control plan, and the evidence of capability before rate, not after the line is already late.
- ◆Bring up new designs, new factories, and new processes. Be on the floor, debug the tool, and close the yield and rate gap yourself.
- ◆Do the reliability and quality work the hardware needs: failure analysis, test and screen strategy, process FMEA, corrective action, and a field-to-factory loop that changes the product.
- ◆Carry the technical decision with design, test, supply chain, and the supplier. Make the call and live with the field result.
- ◆Scale what is proven. Stop what will not scale.
- ◆Own escapes into customer deployments, gateway sites, orbit, and datacenter operation.
Qualifications
- ✓Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline.
- ✓8+ years of hands-on experience in supplier development, manufacturing or process engineering, equipment engineering, quality engineering, or reliability engineering for hardware.
- ✓Experience with driving a supplier, design, or process from initial conception to production.
- ✓Experience owning the outcomes related to final yield, quality, and performance.
- ✓Experience in at least one of the following:
- ✓Semiconductor or packaging
- ✓PCB fabrication or assembly
- ✓Mechanical fabrication
- ✓Electromechanical assembly
Preferred skills and experience
- ✓10+ years, including ownership of a commodity or process from selection through a high-volume ramp.
- ✓Consumer electronics, networking, satellite, or datacenter hardware, with production measured in thousands to millions of units.
- ✓New factory or new process bring-up: equipment selection and installation, process development, capability, and rate.
- ✓Technology and supplier selection on a new design, including process trade studies, make-or-buy, and second source.
- ✓Reliability: life test, HALT/HASS or equivalent, physics of failure, and corrective action tied to field returns.
- ✓Using FMEA, control plans, SPC, DOE, MSA, and structured root cause as engineering tools.
- ✓International supplier travel, and sound judgment when you are the person representing SpaceX in the factory.
Requirements
- ✓Travel up to 50%, including international travel, often on short notice.
- ✓Extended hours during builds, ramps, and line-down events.
- ✓Regular time on factory floors at SpaceX and at suppliers.
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 .
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 .
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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.
Sr. supplier development engineer (starlink)
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. Starlink is building the hardware to make a global communications network real: user terminals, gateways, satellites, and datacenter products, at a rate and a cost aerospace has not shipped before.
This is one role because the work is one job. You own a technology, a supplier, and a manufacturing process from selection through high-volume production, and you are accountable for how that hardware performs after it ships. The scope runs across silicon, advanced packaging, printed circuit boards, mechanical parts, and assembly. Some weeks you are choosing the process and the factory. Some weeks you are the reliability engineer or the quality engineer standing up a new design, a new line, or a new process. You do not hand the outcome to someone else.
You will do this with a manufacturing team that has already taken flight hardware and consumer hardware from first article to rate. The problems are on the floor, at the supplier, and in the field.
