Category: Industry Insights

At a prime, a design change can go through several rounds of review before anyone touches the hardware. If you’re leaving a prime for a space startup, the sign-off might be you and one other engineer.

For a lot of engineers, that’s the appeal. 

You get to follow your work from the drawing to the test stand. If you’re thinking about making the move, start with what startup hiring managers look for. Being qualified is only part of it. You also want to know you’d be happy there.

What Changes When Leaving a Prime for a Space Startup

But the ownership you crave comes with a trade-off. A small team means fewer people checking your work, and fewer review steps to catch a mistake before it reaches the hardware. Your role gets broader too. You might design a bracket one week and run its vibration test the next.

Your work is also more open to scrutiny. 

On a 30-person team, everyone can see how your part of the project is going. From what we’ve seen, the engineers who stay and grow at a startup knew what they were signing up for: more ownership, and more scrutiny when things go wrong.

How to Know If a Space Startup Is Right for You

Not everyone will be happy at a startup. A startup can train you to close a skill gap. Changing how you like to work is much harder.

These questions can help you work out whether a startup suits the way you like to work:

• When there’s no process for something, how do you usually handle it?
• How do you feel about taking on work outside your job title, including the unglamorous parts?
• How would you handle being the one responsible when something you built fails a test?
• Where do you want your career to go in the next few years: deeper into engineering, or into managing people?

That last question matters most if you’re already in a lead role at a prime. A technical lead who’s still hands-on is one of the hardest profiles startups ask us to find. At bigger companies, engineers tend to step back from the technical work once they start leading. A startup lead usually has to run the team and still do the engineering.

Seed Stage vs Scale-Up: Which New Space Company Suits You?

If some of those questions gave you pause, you don’t have to rule out new space. You might find that a scale-up is a better fit.

Seed-stage startups

At a seed-stage startup, the team is small, so your role will stretch well beyond your job title. It’s where you’ll get the most ownership and the biggest step up. Smaller startups also tend to be more flexible on years of experience, so a jump to lead can come sooner. It’s also the stage where a company is most likely to run out of money or change direction, which makes your job less secure. Getting from seed to Series A has become harder since 2021, according to Carta’s data, though some of those companies are still young or growing without new funding. Before you join, ask how much runway the company has.

Series A and B companies

By Series A and B, companies are usually building their first proper teams and putting basic processes in place. You’ll still own a lot, but you’ll also have more support around you.

Scale-ups

A scale-up is a company that’s past the early startup stage and growing fast, often into the hundreds of people. We’ve seen one company grow from about 450 to 700 people in 18 months. There was plenty of room to step up, but it had more of the support an engineer from a prime is used to.

Whichever stage you look at, check that the company is on solid ground before you sign. Here are four signs a space startup is a safe bet. And because many of these roles need you on site, relocating for a space role may be part of the decision too.

Making the Switch From Old Space to New Space

Before you apply, think about which stage suits how you like to work, whether that’s a ten-person seed startup or a scale-up of several hundred. It’ll help you pick the right roles and know what to ask in the interview. If you’re thinking about leaving a prime for a space startup, take a look at the space roles we’re hiring for right now.

Space startups are building some of the most exciting hardware in the industry, from reusable rockets to lunar landers. A lot of it is first-of-its-kind work, and you can go from design to test in months rather than years. But moving from legacy aerospace to new space isn’t for everyone.

If you’re currently navigating red tape at one of the primes, you might want in. Your experience counts, but a startup hiring manager will want to know whether you’ll cope with a smaller team and less support. That means fewer people checking your work and less process to fall back on.

Old Space vs New Space: What’s the Difference?

By old space, we mean the established primes. These are the large defense and aerospace contractors, like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Much of their government work has historically run on cost-plus contracts, where the customer covers the costs plus a fee. Because the customer is paying for the time spent, there’s every reason to obsess about the details. That means reviews and documentation are thorough, and decisions take time.

New space is the wave of commercial, mostly venture-backed companies building satellites and launch vehicles. They tend to work on fixed-price contracts or investor money, so they build, test and fix hardware quickly. Government buyers are moving in this direction too. In 2025, the Space Force said it wants more fixed-price contracts, with development cycles of two to three years. 

Why Engineers Leave Old Space for New Space

More Ownership of Your Work

One of the main reasons engineers from the primes leave is a lack of ownership. The engineers we speak to are frustrated by how long sign-off takes. It often takes months. Many work on one small piece of a huge program and never see the finished product. They want to own their work and see it matter.

We recently worked on an RF engineering role at a startup of about 30 people. At a bigger company, the engineer would own one part of the RF system. Here, they’d lead the RF design for the whole system. For some candidates, that was worth taking a lower salary for.

A Faster Route to Promotion

Slow progression is another big reason. SatNews reported in January 2026 that at legacy aerospace companies, promotion often depends on senior staff retiring. That’s because large teams have a limited number of senior roles. You could be one of six engineers hoping to get the same promotion. 

Fast-growing space startups offer more opportunity to grow into senior roles, with lead roles opening up as the team grows. We’ve written about this from the hiring side too, in why space engineers leave the primes for fast-growth companies. We cover other common reasons engineers leave, like burnout and broken promises from management, in our guide to retaining aerospace engineers.

What Startup Hiring Managers Look For in Prime Engineers

Your prime background can be a real advantage at a startup. For roles like GNC (guidance, navigation and control), hiring managers tell us they want a mix of skills: the process discipline of old space and the adaptability of new space. Startups building their first flight hardware or bidding for government contracts need someone who knows why the rigor exists. If you have that mix of skills, you’re in a good position, because GNC is one of the space roles companies find hardest to fill.

Proof You Can Adapt Quickly

Startups move fast, and plans change often. A test result can change a design overnight, or a customer can move a deadline. Hiring managers want to know you can adapt when that happens, without waiting to be told what to do next.

To demonstrate your adaptability, show them examples, like a fast project where the plan changed halfway through, or time in a small team (even if it was in a big company). Things you’ve done off your own back count too, like a fix you pushed through without being asked. They show you’ll act without someone telling you to.

Technical Leadership That Stays Hands-On

If you lead a team, show that you still do the engineering. A technical lead who’s still hands-on is one of the hardest roles we’re asked to fill. At large companies, engineers tend to step back from the technical work once they start leading. A startup can’t afford a lead who only manages.

A First-Principles Mindset

Hiring managers at newer space companies increasingly want engineers who reason from first principles. That means working out why something is done before accepting that it has to be done that way. In an interview, that might mean explaining why a test requirement exists, and when it wouldn’t apply to a smaller program. That tells a startup more about you than a list of programs on your resume.

The Right Culture Fit

But more important than any of these things is culture fit. That’s about how you work with the people around you. At a prime, you might only work closely with a few people on your part of the program. On a startup team of 15, you’ll work with almost everyone, often under pressure. If one person doesn’t get on with the team, it slows everyone down. From what we’ve seen, a poor culture fit can do more damage to a small team than a gap in someone’s technical skills. We’ve written about this from the founder’s side in what separates a strong early space engineering hire.

Culture fit is hard to show on a resume, so hiring managers mostly judge it in the interview. If you answer in one line and stop, they have to dig for everything, and strong experience can still come across as a poor fit.

Making the Move From a Prime to a Startup

Your prime experience gives you more to offer a startup than you might think. Show hiring managers you can adapt and fit the team, and that experience becomes a selling point. Before you apply, make sure the company is a safe bet, and think through what relocating for a space role would mean for you.

If you’re thinking about leaving old space, take a look at the space roles we’re hiring for right now.

An RF engineer who has taken a system from an idea on paper all the way to flight is rare. Rare enough that we could put that person forward to three of our clients and expect three offers. That’s flight heritage. Many engineers have the experience, but it’s not clear from their resumes. And others are closer to it than they realize.

How does a hiring manager choose between two RF engineers with the same skill set at the offer stage? Often, it comes down to what they’ve built that’s in space right now.

What Is Flight Heritage?

Flight heritage means hardware or software has already flown in space and done its job. Engineers measure this on NASA’s Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale, which runs from 1, where the basic science has been observed, to 9, an “actual system flight proven through successful mission operations.” TRL 8 is one step short: qualified through testing, but not yet flown.

In hiring, flight heritage is shorthand for engineers who have taken their work from early design all the way to orbit. Hiring managers want to know what you owned and how far it got. That matters more to them than your job title or your employer.

Why Do Space Hiring Managers Care About Flight Heritage?

Once something launches, you can’t send an engineer up to fix it. Ground testing gets close, but some stresses can only be fully validated in orbit.

Engineers who have seen their work through to flight know which problems tend to surface just before launch, because they’ve lived through the late design changes and test failures themselves. Companies want that experience, and the engineers who have it rarely need to look for a new job. They’re usually in good roles at good companies, often with equity they’d be leaving behind.

Why Doesn’t a Big Name on Your Resume Prove It?

Hiring managers notice a big name on a resume. The important thing is what you built there, and whether any of it flew.

Some of our startup clients ask for engineers from SpaceX or another big name, partly because it reassures their investors. But large teams split the work into narrow pieces. You can spend years on one part of one subsystem, even in a senior role. 

Technical leads at bigger companies also aren’t always as hands-on as their startup counterparts, especially once they start managing people. A startup hiring its first engineers needs someone who can lead a technical area and build the product.

If you’re at a large company with stock still vesting, weigh a move to a startup on what you’d own there, as well as what you’d leave behind. 

How Do You Show Flight Heritage on Your Resume?

If you’ve done the work, make sure it’s visible on your resume. Here’s how:

Lead With What You Owned

Job titles vary so much between companies that they don’t mean much without context. When we search for RF engineers by title, we get telecom engineers too, so we search by what people have done. Hiring managers read your resume the same way. Under each role, start with the system or subsystem you were responsible for.

Show How Far It Got

Name the stages you took your work through, from design and build to test, integration, launch and operations. If it flew, say so, and say whether it’s still operating. If the program stopped before launch, say how far you got.

Say Whether You Led or Supported

Jules Haehn, a former principal technical recruiter at Vast, has some great resume advice for space engineers. He asks candidates: “Did you play a leading or supporting role in your projects?” Both are worth listing. Just make the difference clear, because a hiring manager will ask. Verbs like “owned” and “led” read differently from “supported” and “contributed to”.

Put a Number on It

Haehn says most of your bullet points should include a metric. In space, that could be how many test campaigns you ran, or how long your hardware has been operating in orbit. Compare these two lines: 

• “RF Engineer, satellite communications team”
• “Led the RF design for a communications payload from early design through testing and launch. It’s been operating in orbit for two years.”

The second one tells the hiring manager what they want to know before they ask.

Add a Portfolio

Keep your resume short. Haehn suggests a separate portfolio with one or two slides per project, covering the objectives, requirements, your contribution, the results and what you learned. It gives you room for detail that won’t fit on a resume.

Stay Inside Your NDA

A lot of space work is covered by export controls or non-disclosure agreements. You can usually describe your role and how far the work got without naming the customer or sharing technical detail. If you’re not sure, check with your current employer what you’re allowed to say.

Look Beyond Your Day Job

If your current role only covers a narrow slice of a system, look for other proof. Time on a small, fast-moving team, or something you built on your own time, is evidence you can own more than your job description. Haehn also recommends adding side projects to your portfolio.

What If Your Experience Stops Short of Flight?

Maybe your program was cancelled before launch, or you haven’t been on one long enough to see it fly. You’re still in the running for plenty of space roles.

In small talent pools, some hiring managers know that asking for an exact match will cost them candidates. They’ll look at engineers who cover most of what the role needs, especially when you can learn the missing skills on the job.

If you haven’t seen a system through to flight yet, lead with the furthest stage you reached: qualification testing, integration, or a program that got to TRL 8 before it stopped. Then look for a role where you’ll own a system all the way to launch. That’s more likely at a smaller company, where teams are lean and engineers cover more of the lifecycle. It’s also where a step up into a lead or principal role tends to come sooner.

Make Your Flight Heritage Easy to Find

Flight heritage is proof that something you worked on made it to orbit and did its job. A hiring manager won’t see that from your job title or a company name, so spell it out on your resume.

If you’re thinking about where that experience could take you next, take a look at the space roles we’re hiring for right now.

A founder tells you your 0.5% could be worth $5 million one day. Before you count on it, you need to know how much of that you’d actually keep, and what has to happen first.

If you’re interviewing at a space startup and want to understand the equity on offer, this blog is for you. In it, we cover how equity works and the questions to ask a founder before you sign on the dotted line. 

Startup offers often pair equity with a lower salary than you’d earn at a bigger company. If you’re still deciding whether that trade works for you, start with our guide to weighing startup equity against salary.

How Space Startup Equity Works: Vesting, Cliffs and Dilution

Most space startup offers include equity: a grant of shares or stock options, often described as a percentage of the company. That percentage is where the conversation starts. How much of it you actually get depends on the terms of the agreement. These are the ones to understand before you sign, using Index Ventures’ guide to employee equity as the reference point:

• Vesting: you don’t get all your shares on day one. You earn them over time, usually a period of four years. Most companies also set a one-year cliff, a waiting period before anything vests. If you leave before your first year is up, you walk away with nothing. Once you reach the one-year mark, a quarter of your shares vest at once, and the rest usually vest monthly after that.
• Exercise window: stock options give you the right to buy shares at a set price. If you leave, US companies usually give you 90 days to buy your vested options, in cash. You may owe tax before you can sell anything. Carta found that by late 2024, employees were buying only about a third of their vested “in the money” options (ones worth more than the price to buy them). Cost is a big reason. Buying your options can mean dipping into your savings.
• Dilution: each funding round creates new shares, so your percentage shrinks. In Index’s example, 1% at seed becomes about 0.4% by Series D, though the stake can still be worth more in dollars.
• Preferred shares: investors usually hold preferred shares, which the company pays out first when it sells. Employees hold common shares, so a low-price sale can leave little for you.

The size of the grant matters too. Index’s US benchmark puts the average seed-stage grant for a senior engineer at about 1% of the company, though its figures cover all sectors, so treat that as a rough guide. Say you’re offered 0.5% and the founder is aiming for a $1 billion exit. That’s $5 million on paper. If the company raises three more rounds and each one sells 20% of the company, your stake shrinks to about 0.26%, or around $2.6 million. Preferred shares get paid first, so the real figure could be lower. Tax on equity depends on your situation.

Early Stage vs. Late Stage: How Company Stage Changes Your Odds

A 1% stake at a seed-stage company is a very different prospect from 1% at a Series C company. At a well-funded late-stage company, equity works more like a bonus on a fair salary. At seed, equity is the startup’s way of asking you to stay for the long haul. It only pays off if the company survives several more funding rounds.

Picture two job offers. One is from a Series C space company that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and plans to go public in the next few years. Shares there are more likely to pay out, and sooner. The other is from a Series A company that has just raised its first big round and may be several years away from any payout. Those shares could end up worth far more, or nothing at all.

Early-stage companies are also the ones most likely to close down. In 2024, 966 US startups on Carta’s platform shut down, up from 769 the year before, and SimpleClosure found that 74% of shutdowns since 2023 were at pre-seed or seed. 

Firefly Aerospace is an example of a startup that did make it big. When it went public on Nasdaq in August 2025, employees holding stock could finally sell it, once the usual lock-up period after an IPO had passed.

Questions to Ask a Space Startup Founder Before You Sign

Now put what you know about equity to use in your interviews. A recruiter can tell you a lot about the role, but only the founder can tell you what your shares could be worth and how likely they are to pay out. A founder who’s confident in the business should be happy to answer questions like these:

• When do my shares start to vest, and is there a cliff?
• What percentage of the fully diluted company is this? That means counting every share and option, including ones set aside for future hires.
• If the company sold, how much would investors get paid before employees?
• How long would I have to buy my options if I left?
• What are my shares worth in your best case, your expected case and your worst case?
• How many months of runway do you have, and is this role paid for by a customer contract or by the next round?
• Have any employees been able to sell shares yet?

If a founder can’t answer these clearly, take note. One candidate we’ve worked with came to us after they relocated for an early-stage company that folded only months later. Our guide to how to tell if a space startup is a safe move covers the other signs to check before you sign.

Space Startup Equity: Ask for the Numbers First

A big percentage and a big IPO target sound great in a pitch. But don’t forget that what you keep depends on the terms of the grant and on whether the company even gets there. 

Before you weigh the shares, make sure the salary can support you and anyone who relies on you. Our guide to weighing startup equity against salary shows you how to work that out. And if you’re thinking about your next move, take a look at the space roles we’re hiring for right now.

This blog is general information, not financial or tax advice. Everyone’s situation is different, so talk to a qualified financial advisor before you make decisions about equity.

For many engineers, the reason to join a space startup is the work, even when weighing startup equity vs. salary means earning less. On a small team, you could own far more of the system than you would at a large company, and grow faster with it. Space startups raised close to record venture money in the first half of 2026, so more engineers are getting offers like this, with equity as part of the package.

The trade-off is usually salary. Startups have to make each funding round last until the next milestone, so they often pay less in cash and offer shares to make up for it. Those shares could be worth a lot in seven years, or nothing. Weighing startup equity vs. salary comes down to whether the pay cut works for you, and that’s what this blog covers.

What You Get at a Space Startup Besides Equity

The difference is scope. At a startup, a small team owns most of the system. Of all the reasons engineers give us for wanting to move, more hands-on technical work comes up most often. Frustration with red tape at bigger companies is another big one.

At a large space company, your work is often part of a much bigger program. On a small team, an RF engineer could end up leading RF design for the whole system. If that’s what you want, the equity doesn’t need to make you rich for the move to be worth it.

Space Startup Funding in 2026: Plenty of Money, Few Payouts

By the end of June 2026, space tech startups had already raised more venture money than in the whole of 2025: $11.3 billion against $10.1 billion, according to PitchBook. More funded startups mean more offers with equity attached.

However much a startup raises, your shares only pay out when someone buys the company, it goes public, or it lets employees sell shares to investors. Going public is still rare in space, and shares aren’t always worth that much when it happens.

Astra went public through a SPAC (a listed shell company that merges with a private one) in 2021 at a $2.1 billion valuation. By late 2022, its shares were more than 96% below their peak, and in 2024 its founders took it private at 50 cents a share. The US has plenty of space startups, but not many engineers have cashed in their shares. Some will, and you can learn a lot about which companies are likely to get there before you sign. 

Startup Equity vs Salary: Start With What You Can Live On

Before you look at the equity, work out whether the money in your bank account makes sense. Don’t forget to take into account the cost of living if you are relocating for a space role. Equity can take years to pay out, if it pays out at all.

Our consultants find the engineers who suit equity-heavy offers are often willing to earn $30,000 to $50,000 less than they could elsewhere. Where you live matters too. Your money goes a lot further in Huntsville, Alabama, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, than in the Seattle area, home to Blue Origin and Amazon’s Kuiper, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. 

What You Leave Behind at a Bigger Space Company

Weigh the startup offer against everything you’d leave, your salary cut included. At a large or newly public company, part of your pay is stock you can sell, plus grants that keep vesting while you stay. Walking out means saying goodbye to unvested grants.

SpaceX listed on Nasdaq in June 2026 at $135 a share. On August 6, up to 911.5 million shares held by employees and early investors became available to sell. Even before the IPO, SpaceX ran regular tender offers that let employees sell shares to approved investors, at $185 a share in December 2024.

That’s stock you can turn into a deposit on a house. A seed-stage startup offers a different trade: shares that could be worth far more later, though you may not be able to sell them for years. Stock you got as part of your pay is hard to give up, and it’s one of the biggest reasons we see engineers turn startups down.

Look at the whole package too. Health insurance and retirement plans can look different at a small company, so ask for the details early so that nothing surprises you at the offer stage.

Who a Space Startup Equity Offer Suits

The right call depends more on your situation than on how exciting the company is. It comes down to how many people rely on your income and how much savings you have to fall back on.

The engineers we see make this move well tend to be five to eight years into their careers, want more ownership than they have now, and have room in their budget to earn less for a few years. If your family depends on every paycheck, a pay cut costs you more. We know this is a hard decision, and it’s fine to decide the timing is wrong.

Startup Equity vs. Salary: Weigh the Salary First

Shares can’t buy groceries, but under the right circumstances they’re still worth having. Decide on your bottom line, and be clear about what you’d leave behind. After that, it comes down to the founder: do you understand their vision, and do you believe in it enough to take the trade? If you’re thinking about your next move, take a look at the space roles we’re hiring for right now.

This blog is general information, not financial or tax advice. Everyone’s situation is different, so talk to a qualified financial advisor before you make decisions about equity.

“Space experience required.” It’s the line that stops a lot of good engineers from applying for a job in space. But the space industry has a well-documented skills gap, and that gap is your way in. Only about 3% of the nearly 3 million engineers in the US work in industries that support space, according to RAND, and space companies are looking for a very specific profile.

The shortage is getting harder to ignore. Investors worldwide put $23 billion into space technology in the 12 months to mid-2026, more than double the year before, according to the Seraphim Space Index. Most of those funded companies want engineers with years of experience, and the US Office of Space Commerce found mid-career roles are the hardest to fill. Those engineers are usually settled in good jobs, often with other offers on the table.

Why The Space Talent Shortage Works in Your Favor

For some roles, flight heritage (experience taking hardware from design through to flight) is non-negotiable. Where it isn’t essential, and where a role is too niche to fill from inside space, companies are open to people from other industries. 

Of the people we placed between January and September 2026, about six in ten came from outside the space industry, and more than a third came from industries with no link to aerospace at all. If you’re looking for a job in space, these are the roles companies told us they struggled to fill:

The Hardest Space Jobs to Fill, and Who Could Fill Them

RF/Microwave Engineer

What the Role Involves

RF (radio frequency) engineers design the hardware that lets a spacecraft send and receive signals, such as the receivers and transceivers that carry data between orbit and the ground. At a startup, you’d often lead RF design for the whole system rather than owning one small part of it.

How to Make Your Experience Count

This is one of the most niche skills in US space hiring, and hands-on hardware work usually means time on site. Engineers who’ve designed RF hardware, in defense, radar or similar systems, are the closest match. 

Companies will look past the job title to the hardware you’ve actually designed and tested, so lead with that. On one search we worked in September, the client opened up to hybrid working and to people with about 80% of the experience on the spec, after holding out for a near-perfect match.

GNC and Avionics Engineer

What the Role Involves

GNC (guidance, navigation and control) engineers design the onboard systems that track a spacecraft’s position and keep it on course, whether that’s a rocket climbing to orbit or a satellite holding its place. Avionics engineers design the onboard electronics, from the system architecture to command and data handling and power.

How to Make Your Experience Count

Companies we spoke to in September want the process discipline of traditional aerospace combined with the pace of a newer space company. That means engineers from traditional aerospace and defense already bring part of what these companies are looking for.

Leadership roles here do ask for space-mission experience, so the way in is often a hands-on engineering role.

Thermal Engineer

What the Role Involves

Thermal engineers keep every part of a spacecraft within a safe temperature range, from launch through to orbit. You’d model how heat moves through the vehicle and run thermal tests to check the hardware can handle space.

How to Make Your Experience Count

Companies told us a “thermal engineer” title says very little about whether someone has worked at the level of a whole vehicle. If you’re coming from another industry with hands-on thermal test experience, spell out what you tested, at what scale and how far it went. The job title won’t do that work for you.

Test and Analysis Engineer

What the Role Involves

Dynamics and shock analysts work out whether hardware will survive the shock and vibration of launch. Some companies that used to outsource this work are now bringing it in-house, which is creating new roles. 

How to Make Your Experience Count

The specialist pool is tiny. In one state, a keyword search for a role we worked on this year dropped to about seven people. If you’ve done vibration or structural testing outside space, this role is worth a look. With so few specialists around, companies have good reason to consider people who’ve done other kinds of testing. In your application, connect your test work to the hardware the company is building.

Satellite Network Engineer

What the Role Involves

Network engineers at satellite companies build and run the networks that move data between satellites and the customers on the ground.

How to Make Your Experience Count

Of all the roles here, this one is the most open to people from outside space. One role we worked on this year needed no space background at all. The most important part of the role was telecoms experience. Roles like this are often contract positions, which can be a lower-risk way to get space onto your résumé.

Where to Start if You Want a Space Role

The roles that are hardest to fill are the ones where a company has the most reason to look at someone like you. If your background lines up with one of the roles we’ve mentioned, lead with what you’ve built and tested, and let the work make the case that a job title can’t.

Once you’re in, the next step is building the experience that makes you hard to replace. If one of these roles sounds like your next job in space, take a look at the space roles we’re hiring for right now.

Candidates weighing an offer from an early-stage space company instinctively check the funding before they sign. But funding alone doesn’t tell you whether a space startup is a good move. Plenty of well-funded space startups still haven’t made it, and the engineers who signed with them have had to start over.

Nearly half the companies we hired for in the last year were seed or Series A startups. More candidates are getting that early-stage call, and with so many new startups in the space economy, they’re asking whether it’s safe to sign on the dotted line.

CB Insights tracked 431 venture-backed companies that shut down since 2023. The companies in that group had raised an average of $11 million each. Of those companies, 70% folded when the money ran out. But CB Insights also found that running out of cash was rarely the real cause. Poor product-market fit and unsustainable unit economics are what dry up the capital in the first place. 

Virgin Orbit raised $228 million going public in 2021. It lost nine satellites in a failed launch in January 2023 and filed for bankruptcy three months later. The money ran out because the mission failed. After the launch, investors lost confidence and stopped funding the company.

Some of the examples below come from bigger companies, because their moves are public. The same signs show up at a 20-person startup, just on a smaller scale. 

Look Past a Space Startup’s Funding Round

A funding round tells you a company has money. That’s important for candidates deciding whether to join an early-stage startup in space. Over the last year, 78% of the roles we filled needed people on site at least some of the time, and 28% of the people we placed relocated for the job. If you move for a startup and it folds, you lose more than the job. 

But instead of asking how much money a company has, ask, “What’s changed since your last raise?” A raise shows that investors believe in the company’s plan. What’s changed since then shows whether the company is executing the plan. These four signs tell you whether a space startup is a safe bet, and you can check all of them yourself before you sign.

A Contract With a Deadline Beats Being Eligible to Bid

Ask your interviewer directly: is this role paid for by a customer contract or by the next funding round? Either answer can be fine. Plenty of solid space companies are running on investor money right now. But asking the question helps you understand the risk you’re taking on.

What a Named Deadline Means

Joining a contract vehicle (a pre-approved list of companies a customer like NASA can buy from) is a real milestone. It means a company has cleared NASA’s bar and is positioned to compete for missions. A specific deliverable with a deadline attached is simply the next stage along that same path: the work has been assigned and a paying customer is waiting.

NASA added Relativity’s Terran R to its Launch Services II contract in September, making it eligible for NASA missions ordered through mid-2030. That’s a strong signal in its own right; NASA doesn’t add companies it doesn’t take seriously.

Lunar Outpost is further along that same journey. NASA gave it $220 million in May 2026 to build Pegasus, its crewed lunar rover, due on the Moon by 2028. Both are good signs for a candidate. They just tell you slightly different things: one that NASA sees a company as a credible future partner, the other that the work and the deadline are already locked in. 

Investor Money vs. Customer Money

It’s important to know who’s paying for your role, because that tells you how secure the job is. Investors aren’t paying for a specific product. They’re putting money in because they think the company will be worth more later, and they want a piece of the pie when that happens. A contract means a paying customer. A customer like NASA is putting money behind a product it needs built.

If your role sits on a contract, a paying customer is waiting for the work. If it’s investor money alone, you’re building toward something the company is still hoping will pay off. Should that money run out before the company lands a customer, your job goes with it.

Companies Don’t Sign a Lease on a Maybe

Ask directly: is the space you’d be working in already under lease, or is the company still deciding where to put it? A company still figuring out its location isn’t necessarily a red flag. But a company with a signed lease is a safer bet.

What a Signed Lease Proves

Funding doesn’t come with a building attached. If you’re relocating for a role, check whether the company has signed a lease. The company has to pay rent and buildout costs whether it fills the building or not, so backing out gets expensive.

Cowboy Space leased 291,000 square feet in Kent, Washington, this year to build rockets and satellites in a former Costco distribution center. The company expects the site to bring roughly 300 new jobs to the region. That’s not the kind of space a company signs for a plan that might change.

An Executive Hire Comes With a Mandate

Before you sign, look up who’s joined the company’s leadership team recently and what the company hired them to do.

A company’s leadership tells you what’s coming next for the team you’d be joining. Nobody hires a CFO to formalize capital strategy for a team they want to cut.

Axiom Space brought on a new CFO and CIO this year, alongside a $525 million raise and international expansion into Japan and Switzerland. Its new CFO, Zach Gitomer, said the company needed “financial infrastructure, discipline, and capital strategy” for what it’s building next.

At a seed-stage space startup, you won’t see a new CFO. Look for the first senior hire outside engineering, like a head of operations or business development. It usually means the company is getting ready to grow.

Other Engineers Are Already Joining the Startup

Engineers talk to each other, and they often know which companies are worth joining before anyone else does. Payload found that more than twice as many people have moved from SpaceX to Blue Origin as the other way around. 

Check who’s already on the team and where they worked before. If people with good options chose this company, that’s a good sign. At a startup, the team is small enough to check in an afternoon. If early engineers left solid jobs at larger companies to join, they took a bigger risk than you’re being asked to take. 

Know What You’re Signing Up For at a Space Startup

Funding tells you a company can pay you for now. What you really need to know is whether the company behind the offer has a customer waiting on work, a building it’s committed to, leaders brought in to grow it, and engineers choosing to join. You can check most of this before you sign. If you’re thinking about your next move, take a look at the space roles we’re hiring for right now.