Category: From The Floor

A first government contract changes a commercial space company in ways the revenue line doesn’t capture. The award validates the technology, opens a customer base most startups spend years trying to reach, and tells investors the company can serve both commercial and government markets.

But once the hiring starts, the trouble often begins.

Across our government-focused searches, one pattern keeps surfacing. A company wins with the Space Development Agency, the Space Force, or a defense prime, and then tries to build the team the same way it built its commercial engineering organisation. But what they don’t realise is that the approach that worked for their first 20 hires doesn’t carry over, and the mistakes that follow are consistent enough to name.

The adjacent-industry trap

The first hire is usually a business development or government sales lead – someone to own the new relationship and build a pipeline for the next award. The instinct is to find a person who has sold to government before, so companies look to government IT, cybersecurity, or traditional defense contracting. On paper, it works since they’ve sold to the same agencies, they know the procurement process, and they understand how government contracting works.

What they don’t have is the space context. Selling a satellite communications program to the Space Force is not the same as selling cybersecurity tools to the DoD. The technical vocabulary is different, the stakeholder map is different, and the competitive landscape is different in ways that take months to learn. The pattern we see is that the person struggles to build traction and the company has to eventually restart the search. They would’ve spent the time, the budget, and some credibility with the candidates who were watching.

The compensation disconnect

Government BD talent in space is expensive, and it’s for a reason.

The people who can sell to DARPA, the Space Force, or the DoD at the level a scaling company needs are typically on high compensation. They know what they’re worth, because when they perform, they’re directly responsible for contract wins worth millions.

A company that sets the role slightly lower isn’t saving money, but instead filtering out the candidates it actually wants. The people who accept the lower number tend to be the ones who couldn’t command the higher one, and the search ends roughly where it started.

The equity problem

A third factor is shaping senior outcomes more than it did two years ago. Mid-career and senior candidates moving into government space work are weighing equity more carefully, because they’ve watched companies in the sector go from Series A to serious valuations and they want a share of that trajectory.

The friction shows up when a company wants to offer equity but can’t get sign-off inside the candidate’s decision window. We’ve seen offers declined for exactly this reason – the US hiring manager understood the market, but approval sat with a corporate parent on a different continent and a slower clock. Where equity is structurally hard to offer, that needs surfacing before the search opens, not after the preferred candidate is reading the offer.

The engineering team’s assumption

Beyond the business development hire is an assumption that the existing commercial engineering team can flex into classified work without much change. It can’t, at least not quickly. A classified program needs:

• Cleared engineers, and clearances take months.
• An accredited secure facility, which has its own timeline.
• Compliance infrastructure that a commercial operation doesn’t carry
• Program managers fluent in government reporting, earned value management, and the deliverable cadence defense customers expect.

None of this is impossible to build, but none of it appears on its own once the contract lands. The companies that execute well are the ones that planned the team, the infrastructure, and the timeline before the award, not the ones assembling it after.

The takeaway

A government contract reshapes a company well beyond the revenue it brings. The hiring requirements shift, the candidate profiles change, and the cost of getting it wrong is measured in lost contracts and cooled relationships, not just recruiting fees. The companies that treat the win as a strategic build, not a hiring sprint, are the ones where government work actually sticks.

If you’re thinking about a move into the space sector – or you’re a company trying to figure out where the competition for talent is toughest – geography matters more than you’d think.

The US space economy isn’t spread evenly. It’s clustered in a handful of metro areas, and each one has a different hiring profile depending on who’s based there, what programs they’re running, and what kind of work the local infrastructure supports.

We tracked roles across the US space sector over the past 60 days. Here’s where the hiring is actually happening.

California: 40% of All Roles

Four out of every ten roles we tracked are in California. But it’s not one market – it’s three.

San Diego

San Diego has become a hub for AI-adjacent space companies, satellite comms, and defense programs. The roles here tend to be software-heavy: computational engineering, AI/ML, agentic platforms. San Diego is part defense town, part growing commercial space center, and the hiring reflects both.

LA, Long Beach, and El Segundo

LA, Long Beach, and El Segundo are still the heart of spacecraft manufacturing and satellite operations. El Segundo in particular is home to some of the sector’s fastest-growing companies, with embedded software, flight software, and hardware engineering roles concentrated there. The candidate pool is deep, but so is the competition – every major space company in the LA area is reaching out to the same people.

Folsom and Sacramento

Folsom and Sacramento are quieter but picking up, mostly driven by defense-adjacent programs that need systems engineers, controls specialists, and test engineers.

If you’re a candidate, California gives you the widest range of space roles in the country. If you’re a company, the sheer number of competitors in your corridor means your employer brand and how fast you move matter a lot. A strong engineer in El Segundo is getting approached by multiple companies every month.

Colorado: 20% of All Roles

The Denver and Front Range corridor – Colorado Springs up through Denver to Boulder and Lafayette – is the second biggest space hiring market in the US, and probably the fastest growing.

What makes it different is the overlap between commercial space and national security. Denver has mission operations companies, satellite builders, and a growing number of defense-adjacent startups. Colorado Springs is where the Space Force and US Space Command are headquartered. Boulder and Lafayette have become home to companies building spacecraft hardware – propulsion, mechanical systems, flight components.

The roles here cover everything: GNC, flight software, systems engineering, propulsion, business development. Clearance-required roles are heavily concentrated on the Front Range, which is both an opportunity and a constraint. The pool of cleared engineers in the corridor is well-defined, and every employer there knows it.

If you’re a candidate, Colorado probably offers the best mix of quality of life, role variety, and compensation growth in the sector right now. If you’re a company, you’re going head-to-head with the Space Force industrial base and well-funded startups that are already established there.

DC, Virginia, and Maryland: 9% of All Roles

The DC area is where space meets government. The roles here aren’t engineering-heavy – they’re senior BD directors, VP-level sales positions, and program management. The people who win contracts, not the people who build the hardware.

These roles need specific agency experience: selling to the Space Force, navigating DARPA procurement, building relationships on Capitol Hill. The candidate pool is tiny and very niche. Compensation is high to match.

If you’re a candidate with government sales experience in space or defense, DC is where that experience commands the highest premium. If you’re a company trying to make this hire, it’s one of the most misunderstood roles in the sector. Hiring someone from government IT or cyber because they’ve “sold to the same agencies” is a common and expensive mistake — they know the procurement process but not the space industry, and the hire usually doesn’t last.

Texas, Florida, and New Mexico: The Growing Corridors

Texas (6% of roles) is a split market.

Dallas and Austin are growing for commercial space. The broader state benefits from SpaceX’s Starbase operations and defense infrastructure across multiple military installations.

Florida (6%) is the launch capital of the US.

The roles here connect to launch operations, mission integration, and the growing commercial station ecosystem. As Artemis picks up cadence and commercial launches multiply, Florida’s share of the hiring market will keep growing.

New Mexico (7% – higher than most people expect) has quietly become a propulsion and launch hub.

Companies testing engines and building hardware around Albuquerque and Moriarty are hiring propulsion engineers, avionics specialists, and manufacturing leads. Almost everything is onsite, and the geographic isolation creates a unique challenge: convincing candidates to relocate somewhere that isn’t a traditional tech hub. The companies that figure out how to tell that story well – why the work is worth the move – are the ones filling these roles.

What This Map Tells You

The space economy is national. The talent markets are local.

If you’re a company, your real competition isn’t every space company in the US. It’s the five to ten companies in your corridor hiring for the same roles from the same local pool. Understanding who they are, what they’re paying, and how fast they move is what determines whether you win the people you need.

If you’re a candidate, where you choose to work is also a career decision. The corridor you pick shapes which companies are available to you, which roles exist, and how much leverage you have in a negotiation. An embedded software engineer in El Segundo has a different market than the same engineer in Albuquerque – different compensation, different flexibility, different trajectory.

Pick your corridor deliberately. It matters more than most people realize.

Something has shifted in how engineers in the US space sector evaluate opportunities, and it’s happening before the first conversation even starts.

Two years ago, a strong outreach message from a recruiter – the right role, the right company, the right location – was usually enough to get a response. The candidate would take the call, learn more, and then decide whether to proceed. The evaluation happened during the process.

That’s not how it works anymore. Across the searches we’re running right now, the evaluation is happening before the candidate ever replies.

The Pre-Call Filter

Engineers who receive recruiter outreach are doing their homework before they respond. The pattern is consistent enough to describe.

They check the company’s funding.

Not just whether it exists, but the specifics – when was the last round, how much was raised, who led it, and what the runway looks like based on the team size and burn rate they can estimate from LinkedIn headcount. A candidate who can’t find clear funding information doesn’t decline the opportunity – they simply don’t respond. Silence is their answer to uncertainty.

They look at the team.

Who’s on the engineering leadership page? Are there senior people they recognize or respect? Is the team growing (visible through recent hires on LinkedIn) or stagnant? A company that’s had the same headcount for 18 months reads differently than one that’s added 20 engineers in the last quarter.

They check Glassdoor.

The reviews don’t need to be perfect – candidates are sophisticated enough to discount outliers. But a pattern of reviews mentioning long hours, poor leadership, or broken promises will stop a candidate from engaging. And companies with no reviews at all create a different kind of concern: nobody cared enough to say anything.

They ask their network.

Space is a small sector. An engineer considering a role at a company will message a former colleague who works there, or who interviewed there, or who knows someone who left. The information that travels through these informal channels carries more weight than anything on the company’s careers page.

By the time the candidate decides whether to respond to a recruiter’s message, they’ve already formed an impression. The outreach doesn’t create interest from zero – it either confirms an impression that was already forming or gets filtered out because the impression wasn’t strong enough.

What This Means for Space Companies

The practical implication is that employer competitiveness in the space sector is no longer about the offer. It’s about what the candidate encounters before the offer ever exists.

Companies that are visible in the market – that produce content, that have leaders who share perspectives publicly, that show up in news coverage when they raise a round or win a contract – get higher response rates to recruiter outreach. Not because candidates follow every company closely, but because when the outreach arrives, the name triggers recognition rather than a blank.

Companies that are invisible – that have a bare-minimum website, no content, no leadership presence, and no signal of what it’s like to work there – get lower response rates regardless of how strong the role or the compensation might be. The candidate never gets far enough to learn about the role because the company didn’t clear the pre-call filter.

This doesn’t mean every space company needs a content marketing operation. But it does mean that the signals candidates look for need to exist somewhere. A VP of Engineering who posts occasionally about the technical problems the team is solving. A funding announcement that gets shared with context about what it means for growth. A careers page that says something specific about the work environment rather than listing generic values.

These are not expensive to produce. But their absence is expensive to compensate for, because it means every recruiter conversation starts with a candidate who has low conviction rather than one who’s already interested.

The Takeaway

The best engineers in the space sector are not passively waiting for opportunities. They’re actively filtering before they engage. The companies that pass that filter are the ones that have invested – even modestly – in being knowable. The ones that haven’t are competing with one hand tied behind their back, and most of them don’t realize it because they never see the candidates who decided not to respond.

Across our government-focused searches this quarter, the same pattern keeps surfacing. A space company needs someone who can sell to DARPA, the Space Force, or the DoD. They write a strong job description, set a competitive-looking salary, and start the search. Three months later, they’ve either hired the wrong person or they haven’t hired anyone at all.

The government BD and sales market in space is one of the most misunderstood hiring challenges in the sector. And the mistakes companies make are consistent enough to be worth naming.

The Adjacent Industry Trap

The most common mistake is hiring someone from a neighboring sector – government IT, cyber, or traditional defense contracting – and expecting them to sell space.

On paper, these candidates look right. They’ve sold to the same agencies. They understand the procurement process. They know how government contracting works. But what they don’t have is context for how space programs are structured, how the contracts differ, and how relationships in the space community operate.

What we see across our client base is that these hires tend to last six to twelve months. The person comes in, struggles to build traction because they don’t understand the industry dynamics, and is eventually let go. The company then restarts the search – having lost time, budget, and credibility with the candidates who were watching.

The industry experience piece isn’t a nice-to-have at this level. A VP of Business Development who has successfully closed contracts with the Space Systems Command or built a pipeline through Congressional relationships brings a network and an understanding that cannot be replicated by someone who sold cybersecurity solutions to the same agencies.

The Compensation Disconnect

The second pattern is underpricing the role. Government BD and sales talent in space is expensive. These are people who, if they’re performing, are directly responsible for contract wins worth millions. They know their value, and they’re often already in roles where their compensation reflects it.

When a company sets compensation at $200,000 for a role that the market prices at $240,000 to $250,000, they’re not saving money. They’re filtering out the people they actually want. The candidates who accept the lower number tend to be the ones who couldn’t command the higher one – and the search ends up where it started, with an underperforming hire and a reopened role.

The math on this is straightforward. If the person you’re hiring is expected to close deals worth $10 million or more, the difference between the right candidate and the wrong one is measured in contract wins, not salary savings.

The Equity Gap

There’s a third factor that’s increasingly shaping outcomes at this level: equity.

Mid-career to senior BD candidates – particularly those in the 30 to 45 age range – are weighing long-term upside against short-term compensation more carefully than they were two years ago. They’ve watched companies in the sector go from Series A to IPO. They want to be part of that trajectory, and equity is how they participate.

The problem arises when a company wants to offer equity but can’t get internal sign-off. We’ve seen two offers declined in the last three months specifically because the company couldn’t deliver on an equity component. In both cases, the US hiring manager understood the market reality, but approval had to come from a European parent company’s global leadership — and the timeline simply didn’t match the candidate’s decision window.

For companies where equity is structurally difficult to offer – whether due to corporate structure, board restrictions, or international complexity – this needs to be identified and addressed before the search begins, not after the preferred candidate is already evaluating an offer.

The Takeaway

Government sales hiring in space is niche within a niche. The candidate pool is small, the experience requirements are specific, and the best people are rarely looking. Companies that approach this hire the same way they’d approach a commercial sales search – broad job descriptions, mid-market compensation, and a reactive sourcing strategy – will consistently end up with the wrong person or no person at all.

The companies that get it right are the ones that accept the timeline, price the role accurately, and understand that in this market, the story you tell about the opportunity matters as much as the offer itself. The best candidates in government BD aren’t moving for a salary bump. They’re moving for a company they believe will win.

If you’re a computational engineer working in AI-driven simulation and design, there’s something you should know: the market has shifted in your favor, and it happened faster than most people in your field realize.

Two years ago, many of the engineers doing this work were in research environments – building simulation models, running design optimization tools, and producing outputs that frequently never made it into production. The work was interesting but often theoretical. The career path was uncertain.

That’s changed. Space companies are now restructuring entire engineering workflows around AI-led processes, moving from traditional design-test-iterate cycles to simulation-first approaches that compress months of work into days. And the engineers who can build those tools are in demand at a level that most of them haven’t fully registered.

Production, Not Research

The single biggest motivator we hear from computational engineers who are open to moving is the desire to see their work used.

Many of the candidates we speak to have spent years building sophisticated models in academic or R&D settings. They’ve published papers. They’ve developed frameworks that could transform how hardware gets designed. But a significant portion of that work never reached production – it was research that stayed in the lab.

The companies hiring right now are offering something different. They’re not looking for people to run theoretical simulations; they’re investing in computational engineering as the foundation of their design process. The tools you build will be used to design thrusters, satellite components, and spacecraft systems that go into production and eventually into orbit.

For engineers who’ve spent their careers wondering whether their work would ever leave the research environment, that shift is the thing that gets them to take the call.

The Skill That Sets You Apart

Here’s something that might surprise you: the hiring managers we work with are not primarily screening for technical perfection.

Obviously, the technical baseline matters. You need to be able to build functional simulation tools and work with the relevant frameworks. But in a market where multiple candidates can meet that threshold, the differentiator is your ability to communicate your approach.

Space companies hiring at the lead or principal level are looking for engineers who can break down a complex problem, map out a structured approach, build a solution, and then present it back to people who aren’t from a computational background. The mechanical engineer who needs to use your tool, the program manager who needs to understand your timeline, the VP who needs to justify the investment — all of them need you to explain what you’ve built and why it works.

We’ve seen candidates from major tech companies – people with impressive technical credentials – fail interviews at space companies because they built a strong solution but couldn’t articulate their reasoning. And we’ve seen hiring managers extend offers to candidates whose code wasn’t perfect but whose problem-solving framework and communication were exceptional.

As one hiring manager put it: if the approach is right, the specific tooling can be taught. The inverse isn’t true.

The Onsite Question

There’s a friction point in this market that’s worth understanding if you’re evaluating roles. Many of the companies hiring computational engineers are hardware-first companies – they build satellites, spacecraft, or rocket components. Their mechanical, thermal, and electrical engineers are on-site by necessity.

Some of these companies apply blanket onsite policies that don’t distinguish between roles that need physical presence and roles that don’t. A computational engineer who works entirely in software, building simulation tools that run on cloud infrastructure, doesn’t have the same need to be in the building as the engineer assembling hardware on the shop floor.

The companies that understand this distinction are more competitive for computational talent. The ones that don’t — the ones that require five days onsite for a software-focused role because that’s the policy for everyone — are losing candidates to organizations that offer more flexibility.

If you’re interviating and this comes up, it’s worth asking how the company differentiates between roles that require physical presence and roles that don’t. The answer tells you a lot about how well the organization understands the people it’s trying to hire.

The Bottom Line

The computational engineering market in space is at an inflection point. The demand is real, the compensation is rising, and the companies hiring are offering something that didn’t exist at scale two years ago: the chance to build tools that go directly into production.

If you’ve been in a research-heavy environment and wondering whether the industry has caught up to your skillset – it has. The question now is which companies are investing in this work at a level that matches your ambition, and which ones are still treating it as an experiment.

Two years ago, equity was a secondary consideration for most candidates evaluating roles at space companies. The conversation started and ended with base salary, bonus structure, and whether the role required relocation. Equity came up occasionally, usually late in the process, and usually as an upside rather than a deciding factor.

That has changed. Across the mid-to-senior talent market in the US space sector, equity is increasingly the variable that determines whether a candidate says yes or walks away.

Why Equity Moved to the Center

The shift isn’t arbitrary. It’s driven by what candidates have watched happen over the past three to four years.

They’ve seen companies in the sector go from Series A to IPO. They’ve watched colleagues at early-stage space companies accumulate equity that turned into real wealth. And they’ve done the mental math: a VP of Business Development at a company that reaches a $2 billion valuation holds equity worth significantly more than three years of salary premiums at a competitor.

For candidates in the 30 to 45 age range – the bracket where most senior hires in space sit – this calculation is reshaping how they evaluate opportunities. They’re not chasing short-term salary bumps; they’re looking for companies where the long-term trajectory makes the move worth the risk. And equity is how they participate in that trajectory.

This doesn’t mean base salary has become irrelevant. It means that for the best candidates, a competitive base is the floor, not the ceiling. The equity component is what separates the offer they accept from the one they decline.

How Companies Get It Wrong

The most common equity mistake isn’t offering too little. It’s presenting equity in a way that makes it impossible for the candidate to evaluate.

When a company tells a candidate they’ll receive “0.1% equity” or “$50,000 in stock options,” that number means nothing without context. The candidate needs to understand the strike price relative to the last valuation, the vesting schedule and cliff, what percentage of the fully diluted cap table that represents, how much dilution is expected before the next round, and what the equity is worth in various exit scenarios.

Companies that present equity as a number without this context create suspicion rather than excitement. The candidate either assumes the equity is designed to obscure a below-market cash offer, or they lack the information needed to compare it meaningfully against a competing offer that’s presented with more transparency.

The companies that close candidates on equity are the ones that present it as a structured conversation, not a line item. They walk the candidate through the cap table, explain the dilution path, and describe realistic exit scenarios. They treat the equity discussion as an investment conversation — because that’s exactly what it is from the candidate’s perspective.

The European Parent Problem

There’s a structural issue that affects a growing number of space companies hiring in the US: the equity approval chain.

Several of the companies we work with in the US space sector are subsidiaries or regional operations of European parent companies. The US hiring manager understands that equity is essential to close senior talent. But the authority to approve equity grants sits with a global CEO or board that operates on a different timeline and often a different set of assumptions about compensation norms.

The result is a gap between what the market requires and what the company can deliver at the speed the candidate expects. We’ve seen two offers declined in the past three months specifically because the company couldn’t get equity sign-off before the candidate’s decision deadline. In both cases, the candidates went to competitors who had the authority to include equity in the initial offer.

This isn’t a compensation problem. It’s an internal process problem that manifests as a talent loss. For companies with this structure, the equity conversation needs to be resolved before the search starts — not after the preferred candidate is sitting on an offer and waiting for an answer that may take three weeks to arrive.

When Equity Isn’t on the Table

Not every company can offer equity. Some are too early. Some have corporate structures that don’t allow it. Some are subsidiaries where equity doesn’t exist in a form that’s meaningful to a US employee.

For these companies, the answer isn’t to ignore the equity gap and hope candidates won’t notice. They will. The answer is to acknowledge it directly and compensate for it in other ways that signal long-term commitment: a higher base, a meaningful retention bonus structure, a clearly articulated path to a role with more strategic scope, or a compensation review tied to specific funding milestones.

The worst approach is to promise equity is “coming” without a concrete timeline. Candidates who have been through this before know that “we’re working on an RSU plan” often means it’s six to twelve months away and may arrive at terms that don’t match what was implied during the offer conversation. If you can’t offer equity today, say so clearly and explain what you’re offering instead. Ambiguity at this stage costs more trust than honesty.

Equity as a Competitive Advantage

The companies that understand the equity landscape in space right now have a genuine advantage. They can close candidates that their competitors lose. They can attract people who would otherwise stay in comfortable roles at established companies. And they can build senior teams that are genuinely invested – financially and psychologically – in the company’s long-term success.

The irony is that offering equity well doesn’t cost more than offering it poorly. The number of shares or the percentage isn’t usually the issue. What matters is how it’s presented, how quickly the company can deliver it, and whether the candidate leaves the conversation understanding what they’re being offered.

The Takeaway

Equity is no longer a perk in the space sector. For mid-to-senior hires, it’s a core component of the offer that directly affects whether the company can close. The companies that treat it as an afterthought – or that can’t deliver it at the speed the market demands – will continue losing their preferred candidates to organizations that have figured this out.

The fix isn’t complicated. Get internal equity approval before the search begins. Present it transparently. And if you can’t offer it, have a clear alternative that demonstrates the same kind of long-term commitment. The candidates you’re trying to hire are making multi-year career decisions. Your offer needs to reflect that.

The conversations we’re having with engineers in the US space sector have shifted noticeably over the past 12 months. Not in dramatic ways – nobody is making wildly different career decisions than they were a year ago. But the questions they’re asking, and when they’re asking them, have changed in ways that matter if you’re trying to hire them.

Three patterns keep coming up.

Runway Is Now a First-Call Question

A year ago, engineers would ask about the role, the team, the technology stack. Funding came up occasionally, usually as a background check before accepting an offer.

Now it’s one of the first things people want to know. How much runway does the company have? When is the next raise? What happens if funding gets delayed?

Given the broader market instability and the SBIR/STTR freeze that left hundreds of space companies in limbo for five months, this makes sense. Engineers – particularly those evaluating roles at growth-stage companies – are doing their own due diligence earlier in the process. Nobody wants to relocate for a position at a company with eight months of runway and no clear path to the next round.

For companies hiring right now, the instinct might be to deflect these questions or defer them to later in the process. That’s a mistake. Being upfront about your financial position isn’t a weakness. It’s increasingly what gets strong engineers to say yes instead of waiting for something they perceive as safer. The companies that treat this transparently are winning candidates. The ones that treat it as sensitive information are watching those same candidates accept offers elsewhere.

The Onsite Conversation Has Settled. But the Framing Matters

The remote work negotiation has quietly resolved itself for most engineering roles in space. Engineers understand that the programs they want to work on – clearance-required, hardware-adjacent, often in secure facilities – are going to require meaningful time on site. That’s no longer the sticking point it was two years ago.

What has changed is how engineers evaluate onsite requirements. The question isn’t “can I work remotely?” anymore. It’s “does this company respect my time when I am on site?” Engineers are paying attention to whether a company has a clear reason for onsite mandates or whether it’s a blanket policy applied without thought. They want to know that when they commute to a facility, the work they’re doing that day genuinely requires them to be there.

This is a subtle shift, but it’s influencing where people end up. Companies that can articulate why onsite matters for their specific program – not just “we believe in in-person collaboration” – are having an easier time closing engineers who have multiple options.

Process Speed Is Part of the Offer

Across our active searches this quarter, the pattern is consistent: the companies closing engineers fastest are the ones with two interview stages, a clear timeline communicated upfront, and a willingness to accelerate when they’re told a candidate has competing interests.

The companies losing engineers are the ones who respond to that information by saying “we’ll circle back next week.”

In a market where experienced satellite systems engineers, GNC specialists, and mission operations leads are fielding multiple approaches simultaneously, a slow process doesn’t signal thoroughness. It signals disorganization. And engineers (who tend to be systematic thinkers) read that as a preview of what working at the company would actually be like.

The speed of your hiring process is no longer just an operational metric. For the engineers you’re trying to attract, it’s a data point about how well you execute.

What This Adds Up To

None of these shifts are revolutionary on their own. But taken together, they describe an engineering candidate market that is more informed, more risk-aware, and more attentive to process quality than it was 12 months ago. The companies that recognize this and adapt their approach accordingly are the ones building the teams they need. The ones that haven’t adjusted their approach are finding it harder to keep pipelines moving.

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“Working with recruiters can be a total crapshoot. They can be pushy, money-first minded, and hard to get a hold of when you really need them. EVONA has been the exact opposite! Kat and Ryan are some of the most lovely folks to work with and our experience with them has been wonderful and successful. They are highly motivated to find the right fit, even when it takes a long time. They are kind-hearted and care about taking the time to fully communicate, both with our company and the candidates. High level of professionalism and compassion all around. Thanks EVONA!” Allie St. Amand, Head of Community – Capella Space

“EVONA Worked extremely hard to hammer out an agreement that accommodated York’s budget — suggested flexible & innovative pricing schemes that provided maximum flexibility to York leadership. They used a really impressive group of recruiters to fully canvas all of York’s 18+ hiring needs; demonstrated speed, efficiency, and quality – combined with impeccable organization skills. York was so impressed with EVONA’s responsiveness and quality of support that we happily committed to an agreement that established Evona as York’s exclusive recruiting agency, indefinitely. Exceptionally professional, thorough, well-organized, and impressive. Every recruiter at EVONA has been an absolute joy to work with.” –Director – York Space Systems ‍

“EVONA has a real knack for sourcing top talent for work in the space industry. Certainly, far more than most, they understand the companies and idiosyncrasies of the industry. That’s their niche. But more importantly, they are attentive to our unique skill and experience requirements with a honed ability to really zero in on only the right candidates. They don’t waste our time with piles of resumes or candidates. Despite being an ocean away, EVONA behaves as though they are the 24×7 sourcing shop next door. Their neon light is always on, day or night. I have found myself learning to trust EVONA with the future of our team, which has a huge impact on the future of our business.” –COO – Kythera & RKF Engineering

“As a small company experiencing rapid growth in the space industry, Astrobotic has had a need to quickly fill positions that require specialized experience and skill sets. From a recruiting standpoint, we are at a disadvantage to some of our competitors, because we are located in an atypical city for the industry and we are unable to offer compensation packages on par with larger companies. We have looked to recruiting agencies to assist our effort when we’re struggling to find qualified candidates in our direct applicant pool.

Among the agencies we’ve partnered with, EVONA has outperformed in several respects. First, their recruiters pay close attention to our requirements and feedback, and so are more likely to refer candidates that meet our specific needs. Second, they advocate strongly for our company and have helped to win candidates who were hesitant to make a career change. And third, their service fees are bespoke unlike most agencies, which makes us inclined to partner with them before others. Quality, results, and value are an attractive combination in a recruiting agency.

Beyond those practical considerations, we have found the team at EVONA to be a pleasure to work with. Tom and Ryan have been friendly and prompt in their communication; they have been understanding of our business needs and challenges; and they have leveraged their team effectively to assist us. We will no doubt continue to look to them for support in the future.” –Head of Recruitment – Astrobotic

“EVONA quickly developed a deep understanding for the challenges of our business. We were amazed by their ability to convert that knowledge into a strong recruiting funnel that repeatably produces very high quality candidates. The first hire we did with EVONA has already become an invaluable member of our team here at BLIQ.” –Co-Founder – BLIQ

“EVONA took time to understand our business needs and worked hard to ensure a good fit of candidates. Good communications throughout the process and follow up.” –Chief Engineer – LEO Constellation Company

“EVONA has excelled in doing the hard work for us in the recruiting process. It would usually take us months to work through applications to job postings, and Evona provides a concise list of better-quality candidates in weeks or less, and with personalized briefings on each one. It’s great to have EVONA on our side in this competitive labour market.” – CEO – Helios

“EVONA’s strength lies in identifying suitable candidates which match both the technical need but also the ethos of the company. This reduces the amount of interviews and leads to hires which directly feel comfortable within the team and working environment.” – Lift Me Off

“The best so far!”

“I highly recommend EVONA .Their team is very detailed in finding the most qualified and experienced candidates that we are wanting to employ. Evona’s communication during the process is second to none. They are very professional and work with you throughout the hiring process.” – HR – Vaya Space

COVID-19 has altered the landscape for organisations globally and affected the workforce in a number of different ways. Lockdown restrictions have meant staff have been working from home; redundancies have ensued; candidates previously open to the opportunity of a new career have hunkered down in symmetry with many of their employing organisations and those that have made the leap to a new career have had to interview and onboard remotely.

Positively however, EVONA can report the future for the sector is far from grim.

Companies are hiring, new career opportunities are available and thanks to technological adoption, working, onboarding and interviewing remotely is not only successful, but is likely to become standard practice.

Job-seeking during COVID-19

The reported findings of Space Talent’s COVID assessment of May 2020 indicates there has been a 60% reduction in job seekers from Jan to date. At EVONA we’ve certainly seen a shift in candidate mindset with a general reluctance to leave a current position or pursue an opening in the market.

Our response to this has been a simple one:the number of redundancies in the sector will naturally create an influx of very high quality candidates into the market and increase the competition for roles. We urge those offered a position that meets requirements to make the move. Waiting is likely to delay career goals, restrict future movements and tie the candidate to their current role longer than anticipated.

Candidate tips for success

Take the job: As we’ve just mentioned, waiting to take a role or pursue a new position will only delay your career goals. After COVID-19 the competition for positions will increase. Accepting offered positions will enhance your career potential.

Prepare for interviews: Perhaps the largest change for the workforce has been the need to get to grips with remote interactions, and the most noticeable concern amongst the job seekers: the video interview.

Preparing for a video interview isn’t necessarily any different from meeting with the employer in person; in fact, it can work to your advantage.  We encourage anyone to prepare for an interview thoroughly by researching the company and have notes on hand.

You should present yourself in the same way you would a personal interview, considering body language and dress. Test your systems before dialling in, but remain calm if the worst does happen; we’ve all had a bad tech day.

Utilise technology to work from home: Working for home and onboarding into a new organisation is absolutely possible, even during lockdown. At EVONA we have hired four people during the pandemic, all onboarding and becoming part of the team utilising video conferencing, instant messenger services and email.

You can read more on our top tools to streamline working from home in our article here.

Recruiting during COVID-19

It was certainly true in February that for some of the companies we work with, COVID-19 resulted in slower contracting and was expected to have a mixed impact on revenue targets. This uncertainty seemed somewhat reflected in Space Talent’s recent COVID assessment which reported~30% fall in available jobs from March – May (though the rate is slowing); and certainly in late February, we were seeing clients withdraw jobs feeling it ‘wasn’t the time to hire’.

‍Happily however, to us, this feeling seemed relatively short-lived and others companies we work with have been all too ready to continue with the recruiting effort. 80% of the business EVONA conducts is within the United States and the goal here is clear: American companies must remain the world leaders in space technology.

It is perhaps this mission that has meant despite the feelings of early spring, we find ourselves in a very different environment currently. We’ve just reported the best ever month in our trading history for May 2020, with a steady monthly increase from March.

Whilst we believe our specialist recruitment practices – frequently handling remote hiring situations coupled with the pace and quality of candidate placements – are certainly a factor in our recruitment success despite the pandemic, there is also indication that for some companies, it’s business as usual; and that extends to recruiting new assets into the company.

Space Talent’s report noted that 16.7% of businesses surveyed expected to slightly or moderately increase the headcount within their organisation.

Perhaps this is down to space companies experiencing elevated risk to their survival with funds tied to deliverables and completion of contracts. With the space workforce highly specalised, companies are under pressure to deliver on deadlines and strategically pulling back on the recruiting effort will hamper the delivery of those contracts. ‍We’ve heard from our clients that customer confidence in their ability to deliver on projects is strongly tied to the quality of their workforce. Quality hires have directly resulted in the extension of contracts and the perceived ability of the organisation. With a 60% reduction in the number of job seekers, reaching candidates is a new challenge and quality and pace of hire is crucial.

It certainly feels to us that hiring in key areas of the industry hasn’t slowed at all, in fact, quite the opposite. If this quick turn around is at all indicative of the way in which the sector will bounce back we believe it will be business as usual soon.

Hiring company tips for success

Hire now: Despite initial trepidation, companies looking to hire to reach objectives prior to the outbreak haven’t stopped. It is our view that it will be these companies that will be able to pick up where they left off and make advances on the market whilst others halting recruitment may stagnate. Offering suitable candidates an offer in principle will secure the talent, enable time to familiarise them with organisational procedures and provide security for the candidate.

Utilise technology: Interviewing through video conferencing has never been more necessary. Adopting this method has always shown innovation; it reduces the necessity to travel, allows instant connections, frees up tight schedules of hiring managers, streamlines the recruiting effort, is cost effective and crucially, can currently keep us all safe at the moment whilst not hampering growth.

Embrace remote working: Flexible working conditions are not only generating a happier, more productive workforce, it’s a valuable incentive employers are using to attract new applicants. Many of the job seekers we speak to are searching for greater work-life balance and broader choices in terms of where and how they work. A recent study revealed that allowing employees the flexibility to work from home also increased loyalty. The space sector workforce is highly skilled and not easily reconstituted; it takes considerable time and effort to reconstruct the talent required to restore full operational capabilities. Considering remote-working will retain the skilled employees within an organisation.

The requirement to be able to work from home was on the rise before COVID-19; it’ll be even more popular now and employers need to tool up to be able to satisfy this requirement.

What will the future bring?

From what EVONA has reported, the future of the space sector is certainly secure – if that were ever in doubt. Two years ago the Bank of America predicted that the sector would be worth 2.7 trillion in 20 years time and there’s no reason to question that prediction now. After all, despite a global pandemic, we’ve just experienced the first crewed mission to the ISS from US soil for 11 years; a mission made possible by the increased commercialisation of the sector. Surely that’s as good an indication as any of the resilience of the space industry.

Sources:

• Space Talent COVID assessment 2020 (May 2020)
• Defence Innovation unit – Covid-19 impacts on the US commercial Industry (May 2020)
• IWG Global Workforce survey (March 2019)
• Owl Labs(2019)
• Flex Jobs Survey (2018)

The best team collaboration tools

COVID-19 has altered our working habits in a number of different ways, but none more than introducing us unceremoniously to remote working.

However, working from home was growing in popularity far before it became the enforced norm thanks to lock-down, but if you’re new to the concept or just need a bit of help, we’ve come up without top 5 favourite tools to help streamline your productivity when working from home.

Zoom – Video Conferencing

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars. The basic version is completely free of charge and is available on your desktop and mobile device.

Check out Zoom here >

Teams – Collaboration and Chat

Microsoft is your hub for teamwork in Office 365. All your conversations, files, meetings, and apps live together in a single shared workspace, and you can take it with you on your favourite mobile device.

Check out Teams here >

Trello -Project Management

Trello is a web-based Kanban-style list-making application which keeps all your projects on task at work, at home, or anywhere in between. Free users can add one Power-Up per board and up to 10 team boards.

Check out Trello here >

Dropbox – Cloud Storage

Dropbox lets anyone upload and transfer files to the cloud, and share them with anyone. It’s great for moving large amounts of data between team membersanytime, anywhere. A basic account comes with 2GB of storage space and is always free.

Check out Dropbox here >

‍Headspace – Meditation & Wellbeing

Mental wellbeing is as important as physical wellbeing and in these testing times we’ve turned to Headspace to help. With hundreds of guided meditations to help with stress, anxiety, focus, relationships and more, the programmes are delivered direct to your phone every day. Headspace offers a 2 week free subscription or is currently free for unemployed for a year during the COVID crisis.

Check out Headspace here >

5 more of the best team tools

Canva

Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. Users can choose from many professional designed templates, and edit the designs and upload their own photos through a drag and drop interface.

Check out Canva here >

Blink

Replace your desktop intranet with our award-winning employee app and watch adaption skyrocket. It enables greater engagement and gives your team access to everything they need. Blink gives every member in a highly personalized feed with a curated flow of posts. When employees open Blink they see photos, video, comments, links, gifs and more, all organised by category. The app also gives you ne place for your team to find the crucial company files they need.

Check out Blink here >

Netflix Teleparty

Teleparty (formerly Netflix Party) is a new way to watch TV with your friends online. Teleparty synchronizes video playback and adds group chat to Netflix, Disney, Hulu and HBO.

Join over 10 million people and use Teleparty to link up with friends and host long distance movie nights and TV watch parties today!

Check out Teleparty here >

Slack

Break free from conversations over email – Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.

Check out Slack here >

Calendly

In short, Calendly helps you schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails. You can connect up to 6 of your personal calendars and set your availability for people to book in with you. You’ll never get double booked again!

Check out Calendly here >