Automation & Controls Engineer, Launch Hardware Production (Starship)

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.

Automation & Controls Engineer, Launch Hardware Production (Starship)

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.

Automation & Controls Engineer, Launch Hardware Production (Starship)

This role owns the controls that build Starship.

You will design, commission, and operate the automation behind production systems. A 24-lane, 750,000 sq ft Starship Refurbishment facility (Gigabay) built to assemble & refurbish Starship at rate. Industrial air separation units upstream of the propellant farms. Heat shield tile manufacturing. This team owns that controls scope end to end. The work runs from a blank cabinet and a P&ID to a plant that stays up. You will specify instrumentation, program PLCs, pull in the data, commission the equipment, and then live with it in production. When a lane stops, a cold box trips, or a furnace drifts, you find it, fix it, and change the system so it does not happen again.

This position is based in Cape Canaveral, FL (Kennedy Space Center).

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design, build, and commission the controls for a 24-lane Gigabay: production tooling, lifts, fixtures, factory services, and the data layer the floor uses.

• Bring industrial air separation units online and keep them running. Own the instrumentation, interlocks, and control narratives for compression, cold box, distillation, storage, and transfer into the propellant farms.

• Own controls for heat shield tile manufacturing: thermal process equipment, material handling, inspection, and the data that ties process settings to tile quality.

• Stand up new equipment from first power-on through rate production, then own uptime once it is live.

• Develop and upgrade data acquisition and control systems as the factory, the air separation plant, and the tile line change.

• Maintain the operational capability of control-voltage (