SpaceX added zero new posting velocity this month. 464 in May, 467 in April. Effectively identical. If your mental model of the space industry has SpaceX aggressively expanding, that's not what's happening right now.
Steady state at 12,000-plus engineers looks a lot like standing still. The real growth is somewhere else. Anduril's space division added 176 more roles this month than last. Relativity Space almost tripled their monthly rate. Rocket Lab, Sierra Space, and Vast are all in double-digit net growth. Every one of those is worth a serious look if you're a space engineer thinking about a move in the next six months.
I run a space jobs catalog. Everything comes directly from each employer's ATS feed, no scraping. Below is the Q2 hiring index from a snapshot I ran on May 29, with the specific numbers and a few honest guesses about what they mean.
The setup
I run the catalog behind Made For Space, which tracks 44 space, launch, satellite, GN&C, and in-space services employers. Their listings come straight from each company's ATS (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday). Right now there are 4,514 active postings across those companies, of which 1,826 were posted in the last 30 days.
That's a 40% churn rate on the active feed inside one month, which is high. The space industry is expanding fast enough that most companies are net-adding roles faster than they close old ones.
The numbers below all reflect a snapshot taken May 29, 2026, comparing the last 30 days against the 30 days before that.
Fastest growing hiring pulses
Top 15 companies by 30-day posting delta (minimum 5 new postings in the current window):
| Company | Stage | HQ | Prev 30d | This 30d | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anduril Industries (space roles) | Series G | Costa Mesa | 331 | 507 | +176 |
| Relativity Space | Growth Equity | Long Beach | 57 | 135 | +78 |
| Rocket Lab | Public | Long Beach | 99 | 144 | +45 |
| Sierra Space | Series B | Louisville, CO | 44 | 85 | +41 |
| Vast | Series A | Long Beach | 23 | 55 | +32 |
| Planet Labs | Public | San Francisco | 15 | 41 | +26 |
| Inversion Space | Seed/A | El Segundo | 9 | 33 | +24 |
| Voyager Technologies | Public | Denver | 15 | 35 | +20 |
| Kepler Communications | Post-seed | Toronto | 4 | 20 | +16 |
| HawkEye 360 | Growth | Herndon, VA | 0 | 15 | +15 |
| Turion Space | Series A | Redondo Beach | 3 | 15 | +12 |
| Loft Orbital | Series B | San Francisco | 6 | 18 | +12 |
| BlackSky | Public | Herndon, VA | 4 | 14 | +10 |
| Xona Space Systems | Series B | San Mateo | 7 | 17 | +10 |
| Ursa Major | Series D | Berthoud, CO | 8 | 18 | +10 |
Read these carefully. A few notable stories.
Anduril's space division adding 176 new postings in one month is the biggest single-company hiring pulse in the space industry right now. They're staffing up on rocket motor production, hypersonics, on-orbit systems, and space defense. That's on top of their non-space robotics hiring, which is separately huge. If you're looking at defense-space, Anduril has become the destination.
Relativity going from 57 to 135 is nearly a 2.4x increase in monthly posting rate. Their pivot to Terran R (the reusable heavy-lift vehicle) is generating a real hiring wave. Long Beach and Cape Canaveral are both filling out.
Vast going from 23 to 55 for a Series A company with a real space station program is worth watching. They're a smaller name than SpaceX or Blue Origin but they've been quietly building an aggressive team.
Rocket Lab adding 45 net roles in a month at a public company is a strong signal. Neutron testing is accelerating and they're staffing for scale.
Sierra Space at +41 is Dream Chaser development plus their commercial LEO destination work. Louisville, Colorado, is quietly becoming a space town.
Who's holding flat or cooling
- SpaceX: 464 → 464 (essentially flat). They've been running at ~460-500 new postings per month for a while. This isn't a slowdown, this is what steady-state hiring at scale looks like when you already have 12,000+ engineers on staff.
- True Anomaly: 38 → 27 (-11). Just came off an aggressive Q1 hiring wave. Still 181 active total.
- K2 Space: 30 → 20 (-10). Series B, still growing, just off the wave peak.
- Astranis: 19 → 9 (-10). Off the peak, still a real hirer.
Nobody in this list is in trouble. All are healthy companies working through their headcount plan for the year at different phases.
Where the roles are
By category across the space catalog, last 30 days:
| Category | 30d postings | % of total |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | 590 | 32% |
| Simulation | 374 | 20% |
| Testing | 347 | 19% |
| Autonomy | 175 | 10% |
| Software | 118 | 6% |
| Controls | 112 | 6% |
| AI/ML | 52 | 3% |
| Computer vision | 23 | 1% |
| Robotics (in-space servicing) | 18 | 1% |
| Research | 17 | 1% |
Hardware dominates at 32%. That should not surprise anyone. Space is a hardware industry. Every serious space company runs deep mechanical, propulsion, thermal, and structures engineering teams.
The number worth flagging is Simulation at 20% (374 postings in 30 days). Digital twin, orbital dynamics simulation, flight software HIL setups, thermal modeling. If you're a simulation engineer with real depth in physics-based modeling, the market is very hot for you and most job seekers don't know it.
Testing at 19% is another underrated category. Space test roles (thermal-vac, vibration, EMI, environmental) are highly specialized and companies compete for talent. If you have hands-on space test experience, you're a rare commodity.
The autonomy category (10%) is being driven by defense-space work at Anduril, True Anomaly, and Vannevar. Autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations, on-orbit maneuvering. This category didn't exist as a hiring pool five years ago.
The geographic story
Space is more geographically concentrated than robotics. The action right now:
- Long Beach: Relativity (135 in 30d), Rocket Lab (144), Vast (55)
- Costa Mesa: Anduril space (507)
- Denver / Front Range: True Anomaly (27), Voyager Technologies (35), Sierra Space at nearby Louisville CO (85), Ursa Major nearby (18)
- El Segundo / South Bay: Varda (30), Inversion Space (33), Turion (15)
- San Francisco / Bay Area: Muon Space (14), Planet Labs (41), Loft Orbital (18)
- Hawthorne, CA: SpaceX (464)
Southern California from Hawthorne down through Long Beach and Costa Mesa is by far the densest space engineering hub in the country. Front Range Colorado is the second-largest concentration and growing fast. The Bay Area has fewer pure-space employers than most people assume; it's mostly software-forward space companies (Planet, Loft, Muon).
If you're geographically mobile, three moves are worth considering:
- Long Beach if you want launch and heavy hardware
- Denver/Louisville area if you want spacecraft, ground systems, or space defense
- Costa Mesa if you specifically want to work for Anduril
What to take away
Three calls if you're actively in the market.
Anduril has surpassed SpaceX in space-industry hiring velocity, month over month. If you're a senior engineer looking at defense-space or dual-use, you need to be talking to them.
Relativity's Terran R buildout is real. They're hiring across mechanical, propulsion, avionics, and infrastructure at a pace consistent with intending to actually launch this vehicle. If launch vehicle engineering is what you want to do, they're the second-hottest opportunity in the industry right now after SpaceX.
Sierra Space and Vast are the two Series-B-ish opportunities that get consistently overlooked by candidates fixated on the launch companies. Both are hiring aggressively, both have real programs (Dream Chaser and Haven-1 respectively), both are smaller enough that a strong engineer can have real impact on the program.
Methodology
Numbers pulled from active job listings on MadeForSpace.io as of May 29, 2026. Every listing comes directly from the employer's ATS. "Posted in the last 30 days" reflects when the row appeared in the ATS feed. Delta is current-30d minus prev-30d. Companies with fewer than 5 postings in the current window are excluded from the delta table (they're still in the catalog).
Browse the full catalog sorted by hiring velocity.
Next index publishes early Q3. If you want a specific cut (launch-only, satellite-only, Europe, by hub), send a note.