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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

>Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends

I'm not completely sure that a web developer doing typical frontend work would consider "being in the same company as people building rockets" to be exciting enough to justify the extended hours and weekends thing. For a mechanical engineer getting to practice the pinnacle of mechanical engineering? Yeah, I get it. For react work? Maybe not so much.

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There’s not many greater missions out there than helping pioneer human space exploration. Realistically whatever your role, it’ll be incredibly small - SpaceX has thousands of employees. But however small, it’s moving the needle forward.

If you’re at the point in your life where you can make major sacrifices to a greater cause I’d say this is a fantastic opportunity.

Disclaimer: I’ve have no affiliation to SpaceX, I just believe in their mission.

Whoah, this comment is dark

> If you’re at the point in your life where you can make major sacrifices to a greater cause

On the flip side, you’re making major sacrifices for the direct benefit of one of the richest men on the planet.

Yeah, I agree

I get it, in Space there are no weekends or nights. People working on Mars missions have to work weird hours etc

But no, I wouldn't work at "infinite crunch" places

Most of the positions are tangibly creating something that will be sent into space. This particular role is likely just for the website.

For a mechanical engineer, working at SpaceX is not making a major sacrifice. You're earning a serious pedigree from a place that is on the cutting edge of your field. If you're a frontend developer, you're going to be paying the cost and not collecting the benefit. It would be nice to hire a React dev from spacex, but we all know they'd be the same as a react dev from any other startup. That is not true for people in engineering career paths. A SpaceX line on their resume will help them for the rest of their career.

Is it just a state of mind? I've been perfectly happy and even proud to do menial work on nights and weekends when it was for a cool cause.

The crew displays of the Dragon 2 are built on web tech.

Hollywood: we're running out of oxygen, we're going to die.

Spacex: the electron app allowing us to control our life support systems via touch screen crashed, we're going to die.

There are physical backups for important controls if touch screen fails.

I've said this a few times in other comment threads on HN, but be careful with this mentality. Any hiring manager who sees you as a person who always "watches the clock" downgrades you to someone unreliable for the team, and probably added to a list of "first people to cut" when the opportunity or need arises.

If you are the only person in the world with your skillset, you can maybe get away with this. But "web developer doing frontend work" is one of the more replaceable jobs out there, and it's only getting more competitive.

Don't underestimate the hunger of others in the marketplace. Just because you have a comfortable setup now doesn't mean this will always continue.

I assume you're talking about staying a little late during an emergency, balanced out by leaving a little early when nothing important is going on. SpaceX is talking about 80 hours a week baseline. I understand your platitudes about not being a clock watcher, but if you go to work for spacex expecting to merely not watch the clock, you will find yourself unpleasantly surprised. If we're talking about the average hiring manager, the average hiring manager could not handle SpaceX hours.

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